Someone else had mentioned that in a group it becomes more difficult for
improvization to occur, and the textures can get rather muddy. Yes,
that's so when the group is large whatever that means. Consider the New
Orleans bands of the turn of the century. IN the case of the street
bands no music, and the head improvization head form was generally
followed, and within the improvization section that would be broken into
solos for the various players.
I want also the attemp to clarify a point or so. Firstly, in no way do
I think less of those who work toward learning of our musical traditions
and trying to figure out what they did. That is important for all of
us. It is not just an intellectual exercise, either. Through it we can
all become better players.
Some of the "rules" or common practice if you will have come down to us
because in some cases that was what would really work, and in others they
are similar to why the missus cuts the ends of the ham off before putting
it in the oven. When asked why she said that mom did it that way.
Someone finally got around to asking granny. Hers was a much more
revealing answer. She said that she didn't have a pan long eenough to
hold the entire ham (substitute roast if you like) Some of our
traditions are like that, too, and we have a tendency to look upion what
was done before without question.
Yes, there were musical forms in which the idea was to use the same set
of chords over a varying bass line, and the reversee of that was also
used in which the bass line was fixed and the chords varied.
I can remember in some class or other I was asked to play Autmn leave,
and I could remember "The Chords". I plugged in some others, and the
instructor whas no impressed suggesting that what I'd played were from
hunger. Got the tune "right", but to his taste the chords were not as
written. Hey, they fit and worked sorry bout that.
Seems to me that in the situations where a player is in a situation where
requests can be taken improvization is going to happe. Even Joe Marino,
a local society player who probably knew more tunes than most of us put
together can remember or have even heard of. He new composers, and could
even play the bridge to them would on occasion improvise while he was
coming up with the next item on the list.
When the group of players is larger more formalization is essential,
unless you are working toward a sort of Panderecki sound with a 60 piece
string orchestra.
Nelson
Lookout! There's a blind guy *driving* on the information superhighway!