Some interesting perspectives from bassist Jeff Berlin on the great DW Groove v/s technique vs feel dust ups and a few others....
Myth #1: Some musicians don't know how to play with feel. They just regard music as if they were just notes, without phrasing or feel.
Jeff answered: Practically nobody, anywhere in music, just plays notes without some commitment to feel. The people who say this don't know much about music, because everybody wants to play with some kind of feel, to represent a song as they have heard it. Besides, if one regards feel as so important, then why do so many people defend click track recording, potentially one of the stiffest forms of playing you can have. The most widely accepted form of music is almost always one guy with a recording studio recording a track with no live performer and with either a singer or a rapper who overdubs over it. Nobody seems to be bothered by this music and refer to it as music without feeling.
Myth #2: You can learn groove with a metronome or by "feeling" the groove.
Jeff answered: Name me anybody in the top or secondary eschelons of music who can't groove. You practically can't! Only those guys who state that they "know a guy" who plays without a groove can point a finger at someone else saying that their groove is weak. And I question these guys' skill level to point a finger at anybody. Do you know why some guys can't groove? Because they can't play! Period! If you can't groove, you can't play! And if you can groove, you've learned how to play to some degree. Therefore the solution to the fake correction of groove difficulty is to learn how to play better so that the groove will organically become a part of of your musical skills. It happened exactly this way with everybody who can find a pocket in the music.
Myth#3: People who learn academic music play without feel.
Jeff answered: Name me anybody who learned ANYTHING academically and who cannot express what they have learned with some commitment to feeling. I don't know of a single academically trained chef, language speaker, dancer, actor, or anyone else who hasn't figured out how to evolve their academic training into some kind of artful expression of what they were working on. This is one of the biggest myths of all, and it is ruining music for everybody.
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Myth #1: Some musicians don't know how to play with feel. They just regard music as if they were just notes, without phrasing or feel.
Jeff answered: Practically nobody, anywhere in music, just plays notes without some commitment to feel. The people who say this don't know much about music, because everybody wants to play with some kind of feel, to represent a song as they have heard it. Besides, if one regards feel as so important, then why do so many people defend click track recording, potentially one of the stiffest forms of playing you can have. The most widely accepted form of music is almost always one guy with a recording studio recording a track with no live performer and with either a singer or a rapper who overdubs over it. Nobody seems to be bothered by this music and refer to it as music without feeling.
Myth #2: You can learn groove with a metronome or by "feeling" the groove.
Jeff answered: Name me anybody in the top or secondary eschelons of music who can't groove. You practically can't! Only those guys who state that they "know a guy" who plays without a groove can point a finger at someone else saying that their groove is weak. And I question these guys' skill level to point a finger at anybody. Do you know why some guys can't groove? Because they can't play! Period! If you can't groove, you can't play! And if you can groove, you've learned how to play to some degree. Therefore the solution to the fake correction of groove difficulty is to learn how to play better so that the groove will organically become a part of of your musical skills. It happened exactly this way with everybody who can find a pocket in the music.
Myth#3: People who learn academic music play without feel.
Jeff answered: Name me anybody who learned ANYTHING academically and who cannot express what they have learned with some commitment to feeling. I don't know of a single academically trained chef, language speaker, dancer, actor, or anyone else who hasn't figured out how to evolve their academic training into some kind of artful expression of what they were working on. This is one of the biggest myths of all, and it is ruining music for everybody.
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