There was a singer, a musician named Ray Charles who was making a nice living playing all around Florida, playing the music and the stylings of his idol, Nat King Cole. And one day, Nat took him aside and said, you know, I, I think it’s really, really nice that you’ve patterned yourself after me. But he said in the end, you’re going to want to find your own way. And Ray’s mother told him one time she says, be yourself. I don’t care what that is, but don’t spend your life trying to be something you’re not.
00:43 – 01:27
Now, why am I telling you this? Well, because I think one of the most important messages I can share with you is to find your unique musical voice. And I thought about putting this video at the end. Um But I think it’s important to do at the beginning as we, as you start out in this journey because I do believe that one of the hidden benefits of, of jazz improv savvy is as you deepen your listening to yourself and to what’s going on around you that what can’t help but emerge as you connect that inner music, musical mind with your instrument is more of your voice, your unique individual voice. And you have one.
01:28 – 01:57
Now, you don’t have to be a musical genius in order to do what I’m suggesting. I think what’s tragic is that a lot of players spend their whole lives emulating somebody else wanting to be like someone else and playing as close to them as possible and the whole time they’re missing the magic of themselves. Imagine a Thelonious Monk. You know, if he’d spent his whole life trying to play like Bud Powell, we probably wouldn’t have heard of Monk and we certainly would not have had the rich library of music from Monk. Or, you know, if Cecil Taylor had tried to emulate Oscar Peterson. I know that it seems a little odd, but we we probably wouldn’t have heard of Cecil Taylor. These guys were influenced by a lot of people, but they found their own way. They heard their unique musical voice and as jazz players, we do transcribe and we do try and play Michael Brecker licks and we do try and play like Carl Fontana played in Polka Dots and Moonbeams or we try to play like Freddie Hubbard or Woody Shaw. Just name a player. But we, we should be doing that as a means to an end, not as the end.
02:46 – 03:25
We should be doing that in order to build our chops, to build our harmonic vocabulary to get the feeling of being in the jazz moment. But at a certain point, you put that aside and you listen for who your musical voice really is. You know, those times where you’re driving late at night, maybe you just got done with a gig and your mind is wandering and you’re kind of fantasizing your ideal solo and the way you sound or, you know, just before you go to bed, you’re relaxed and you’re kind of, you know, this, the sound is coming into your head.
03:25 – 04:03
That’s what I want to help you get out of this course because I think that is one of the hidden benefits of this. As I hear players tell me after listening to this, this course and these lessons that they sat in with a band and with tunes they hadn’t played before of known and the music flowed out of them in a way that kind of surprised them and the band loved it and the audience loved it. And I think what’s really happening, not only is it broadening their ability to reach for new notes, but I think their musical voice is coming out in the process. And that’s kind of what leads me to think that this is one of the key benefits of going through this course.
04:05 – 04:23
So play Michael Brecker licks and transcribe solos and learn the vocabulary. But at a certain point, let it go and be brave and be yourself because everybody else is taken. See you in the next video.
ML: Dave, let’s start with your definition of what it means to have your own unique musical voice?
DL: It’s an extension of being human which means that everybody is different and has their own way of navigating life. So you could say from day one that Baby A and Baby B have differences in whatever. Can you identify A and B? Well, if you walk into a room and you are familiar with A and B, you might say oh that’s Mr. A or that’s Mr. B.
What this individuality question really suggests is that we’re doing it all the time. Some of us are doing it in a profession where we need to emphasize it more. That’s show business and entertainment. For example in sports the way Tiger Woods hits a golf ball is different from how Jack Nicklaus or anyone else hits it.
In my presentation called “Seeing the Light” I explain that most likely somewhere, somehow, an epiphany happened to you.
It could be as minor as a family incident or sudden musical/spiritual revelation, as it was in my case hearing John Coltrane for the first time. That was my epiphany.
If you have an epiphany, you may not know it until years later. One hopes that you will be able to guide yourself with the help of the world or whomever (mentor) to center in on what makes you You.
Then you must develop and make it grow. I use the analogy of a tree. The tree has roots and a trunk, the limbs, branches, twigs, and leaves. Leaves fall to the earth disappearing each season and are therefore a passing fad. The roots in jazz are maybe Jelly Roll Morton or Louis Armstrong.
So when you are confronted with something that happened in your life and you can remember and develop it, you have a good chance to find out who you are musically, if in fact music is your destiny.
I was interviewing saxophonist Phil Woods for a magazine many years ago. He was among those artists possessing one of the most identifiable sounds in jazz, especially in the ‘60s. I asked Phil: “Is there something that you purposely did to have this voice that we all know as the Phil Woods lead alto sound?” Phil answered: “Absolutely nothing. The sound that comes from your body. And everybody is anatomically unique with a different chest cavity, neck, lips, etc. All this physical stuff from our body happens below the threshold of consciousness. There’s not much you can do about these factors except recognize them and take advantage of what’s happening.
The paraphrase of Phil’s answer is that if you’re looking for the magic bullet, it’s not there. My opinion is that you hear something or you are inspired by something that has in it the seeds of one’s individuality.
Your job is to 1: identify it. 2: develop it and 3: put it out there, meaning the world should know about this because you are an enlightened being who found what is yours alone – your home base.
From the book The Art of Skill by Michael Lake and Dave Liebman
This is just a fake book example for the type of website I can build for you. Just trying to use a little humor here!
