From: George Brooks Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 00:01:04 -0500 Subject: And just play
harp11~ol.com wrote:
>some big jazz guy once said , learn your instrument then the music , then >forget it all and PLAY....
The big jazz guy was Charlie Parker. According to the liner notes to "Confirmation: Best of the Bird Years" (Verve CD 314 527 815-2), Mr. Parker put it a little more strongly than that. In the course of a lesson he gave to Bobby Jones, another saxophone player, Bird is said to have told him, "First you master your instrument, then you master the music, and then you forget about all that shit and just *play*.
Great advice, but a tough program. Before "just playing'," Bird is widely reported to have gone through a period of several years during which he practiced 10-12 hours a day.
My personal favorite bit of advice attributed to Bird, which also translates well to the harmonica, is this: "It's just music. It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes."
