Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music

Mozart in the Jungle is a cool book. Its a personal narrative written by oboist turned journalist Blair Tindall. Its full of sex, drugs, and classical music for sure as well as gossip and tons of talk about funding for the arts, which she advocates strongly and goes on at length about. As informative and exciting as Tindall's book is I have to mention Mozart in the Jungle the show on Amazon Prime. This is one of those rare instances where the tv show is better than the book. The book is great but after a while there's a sense of meandering gossip, not something I find fun. However I learned a lot from the book about what its like to be a classical musician. And its probably one of the best classical music narratives I can find at the library right now. 

For me the most interesting aspect of the book is how she talks about originally being a classical purist, and trying so hard to join a symphony orchestra, it was her life's goal. And then after she failed some eighteen auditions she realizes that she has to turn to Broadway musicals and such to survive. In a way I can relate. I want to play jazz music but because not many young people like or are interested in jazz (unless they're university types) I have to settle in playing rock and roll to be in a gigging band. Somewhat similar. 

So she realizes she has to lower her artistic integrity in order to make a paycheck. That sort of makes me realize that I have to do the same. I work a retail job but my passion is music and I pursue the music in all my free time but it isn't paying the bills yet. Interesting things to consider and think about. 

Tindall goes on and on about funding for the arts and paychecks for these classical musicians. The thing that hit home with me was when she said there are thousands of musicians graduating from universities every year but the music scene only has some hundreds of jobs for them, and that most of them will have to work retail, office jobs, or menial labor in order to get by in addition with their music performances. All of this hit home really hard, especially when she said a little girl in a dress playing violin is cute but that a sixty year old female violinist with little to no health benefits is just scary. She tells it like it is. 

If your son or daughter is accepted at a music conservatory is it truly because they are a Heifetz or is it because they need more students to fill their empty classrooms? It makes me think of myself. I once auditioned at a University in northern Wisconsin playing two trumpet etudes and I'd only been playing trumpet for about six months. After making a lot of mistakes through the pieces I was surprised that I had been accepted. Really makes you think about the classical tradition and the musical tradition in general. 

In the past (1960s and before) Americans used to be musicians in their spare time. They might not have been as great as symphony orchestra musicians but they loved music and loved playing it. Fast forward to today and for lots of people classical music is a dead genre and they probably wouldn't want to invest time into learning an instrument. Music has been hit hard but Tindall ends the book on a positive note. Classical music performance attendance has gone up slightly within the last twenty years and good music will always find an audience. The future looks bright. 

My (Hero) Musical Academia

So I've been doing a lot of reading, studying, and practicing of different kinds of music and even instruments. I recently started playing the electronic keyboard. I've mainly been reading about music, particularly jazz history. I finished Paul Steinbeck's book on the Art Ensemble of Chicago and I also finished Stanley Crouch's biography on Charlie "Bird" Parker. Both were excellent entries to learn about the history of jazz, which I love with a passion. I also started reading George Lewis' book on the AACM, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a 1960's experimental music collective formed on the south side of Chicago. A black organization that has stood the test of time and produced a lot of talent, many of whom would go on to have great careers and prestigious positions in musical academia. The book is over 700 pages and is incredibly dense but I'm up for the challenge.

In addition to that I'm also studying music from scores, playing the same jazz standards I play on guitar on electronic keyboard (sometimes with just the right hand), and I've even begun experimenting with classical guitar. I went to University of Wisconsin Parkside for a year and they didn't have a jazz guitar teacher there so I had to learn classical stuff. Unfortunately I didn't stay long enough to gain anything from that-until now. I still have all my classical guitar sheet music in my folder from all those years ago, so I took it out, looked at things, and started working on some of the easier pieces. The classical guitar stuff gives me more of a disciplined outlook on the music and my practice routine. I like the sound of the classical guitar but I don't know if I will ever truly have "correct" technique. But that's not what I'm going for anyways. I'm playing it for the challenge, discipline, and beautiful sound of the classical guitar repertoire. A good a reason(s) as any. Also, I found that if I comp jazz chords with the pick and fingers the way a classical guitarist would play without a pick, the comping style becomes more pianistic-a revelation that occurred to me through practicing simple classical tunes (and also dropping my pick into the acoustic!)

With the keyboard my sound will take months to develop. I'm starting to get the hang of some dense Monk comping and chords but my single note improvisations with the right hand don't really go anywhere yet. I have to experiment more with my improvising abilities and come up with more musical stuff rather than just comping chromatic chord clusters. It will take time and I know I can't expect to become a piano virtuoso overnight.

Also, I've been reading about Zen Buddhism. Zen teaches you to let go. I particularly enjoy the history of Zen in China and Japan, especially how the samurai created Rinzai zen and used it to overcome their fear of death in battle. I was initially reading about it because some of my favorite jazz musicians (Herbie, Shorter, Trane, Pat Martino, countless others) are into it and I thought that if I understood Zen it would help me understand the music and also myself, because as young person I'm still searching spiritually. I think that a lot of the important parts of Zen are ideas that we are initially born with and don't think about, but I would have to research the subject more to confirm this.

I've been occasionally reading some heavy science fiction on the side too. Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a dense hard to read book with heavy detail and big words in nearly every sentence. Yet its also entertaining and fun in a cosmic cyberpunk way. I've owned the book for years but I've got this far in the book before. 

Lastly, there's my band. The band is going really well. We know about 6 songs together, most of which are classic rock covers. We're doing a trio of guitar, bass, and drums with myself and the bass player on vocals. The drummer is becoming a good friend of mine and he's asking me for advice on how to get better (after I showed him some jazz stuff) and he's actually listening. I turned him onto Elvin Jones from the Coltrane Quartet and sent him a how to read drum music page, and the drum music score for Smoke on the Water, a cover song we're working on. My singing is getting better, the songs are getting tighter, and the sound is evolving into great real rock and roll, as well as a harmonious trio.

If I didn't stop playing so much video games none of this stuff would be possible. Now that I'm learning a lot more about my favorite subjects gaming just doesn't seem as engaging.

Thanks for reading
Peace and Love,
Orlando Figueroa 

Playing jazz as an untrained musician

Jazz is an institutionalized art form somewhat similar to classical music these days. It didn't use to be that way. In the old days you could pick up your axe, head out to a club, and jam with musicians all night and learn everything you need to know about playing. Nowadays jazz musicians have to go to University to learn the trade. All the important jazz masters that are still alive have had important positions in universities around the country. Here I wanted to discuss what its like playing jazz as an untrained musician that dropped out of Uni.

Lets start with my brief college career. I did go to college for about 2 years. One year was all requisite basic courses and the second year I took a few music courses, but only for a short while and then I dropped out. The actual music theory courses were a nightmare for me but when it came to actually playing guitar in the jazz band I was pretty great. In fact, the teacher liked my playing a lot. Back then I had a really developed ear. I could playback anything I heard and within moments play the exact same phrases and licks. I learned a lot of licks from the other students this way but I also had my own vocabulary when it came to improvising and chord voicings.

I could've learned a lot more about jazz and music if I stayed but it just didn't work out that way. Flash forward to today and I'm learning the stuff I should've learned in college but on my own. I work much more on actual playing and learning songs more so than musical theory but I still read and work on that stuff as well. There were benefits to learning in college that I missed out on to this day. What I didn't miss was that expensive schooling fee that would've put my bank account out of commission for a long time.

The main thing that I find difficult about playing jazz and being unschooled is that its harder to find other jazz musicians. I live in the Valley, about 45 minutes from Los Angeles and not too many people out here play jazz music. In fact, most of them play pop, metal, or rap. LA is a pop town and I don't think me playing straight ahead jazz will make me a lot of money. But I still want to do it because its my dream.

I spend most of time when I'm busking playing jazz standards. I don't bother playing rock and roll because it sounds cooler on electric and I busk on an acoustic but also because I think jazz is the future for me musically. I'm still down to play in a rock or metal context but I've been training extensively on the guitar to become a jazz musician.

If I stayed in college I would've found other like-minded musicians who would probably have developed bands that could have gone on to work together in and outside of school. Learning would have been easier but it would have been more difficult to find my own voice. What does that mean? Well, it means that the teachers in schools teach all the students the same stuff even if they play and think differently. Consequently this creates more jazz musicians but they all end up sounding like university studio jazz band musicians. This is the problem with jazz today. All the new cats sound the same because they're all coming from the same universities and learning the same stuff. I like to think that because I bailed out of school I learned how to develop my own voice on the instrument faster than I would have if I stayed in school.

These are just rambling ideas but the fact of the matter is that the old jazz masters didn't learn from university and just because I can doesn't mean I should. School is a great place to meet people but that sort of disciplined study isn't for everybody. I still think about going back to school for music but in the end I already know most of what I need to know in order to play well. I know that's quite a bold statement to make but its sort of true. I do know that I need more training and more songs under my belt but I'm good enough and smart enough to cover the basics and then some, in terms of uniqueness and style.

Just some thoughts I had when I talked about the university trained jazz musicians with my pops.