Bill Evans - The Creative Process and Self-Teaching
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Extracted from the movie "The Universal Mind of Bill Evans - Creative Process and Self-Teaching".
In this part, Bill talks about how to deal with obstacles, and how to build one's vocabulary step-by-step.
Take a look at my other youtube page at / miscvanguard for lots of other videos.
the fact that i can watch a short movie of one of the greatest jazz pianists giving advice to me on a small device that fits in my pocket is mind blowing.
Exactly
Bill's insights here are so valuable. What Bill describes here is THE learning process for anything... get to as elementary a level as you need to... work there... make that subconscious... then go to the next level... It's the same for everything. If things feel too complicated, then you need to work at a more elementary level...
When you take gradual steps, nothing ever feels that complicated. When you try to take big leaps, then things feel complicated.
I've always assumed that I can't draw... I'm going to try to use Bill's approach towards learning to draw.
Wow... all the best, man.
Nice, this is the true meaning to 'before you learn to walk you gotta learn how to crawl' and it couldn't get any simpler than that!
+otakurocklee I remember I stopped drawing when I was little because I didn't know the principles of this video and I didn't see the small steps as important. I think that the idea that Mozart is said to have commented on is from similar viewpoint when he said that he never tried to be someone great-he just kept composing and trying to get better.
Three years. How is the drawing going?
Explain very well
His "simple" is still otherworldly
True artistry
The very first minute all the way up to 1:01 with Bill talking is straight GOLD. Rene Descartes, the great French mathematician, wrote this waaay back in 1637 (330 years from when this video was made and over 380 years from today in 2021) and they're both pretty much saying the same thing! Descartes says, "For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; *and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress,* provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it." 👏👏👏👏👏
Bill Evans read Descartes.
For those of you who are confused: Bill isn't suggesting that one play it safe and stagnate. His point is that one must grasp the key elements of a skill before one begins to elaborate. The main point: without a true and strong understanding of fundamentals one's output will reflect their superficial understanding. It will be all decoration without proper architecture: a pretty room on the brink of collapse.
+okGhostlyGhost very well said.
Thank you. When Bill Evans said it, I didn't understand. But now that lazyGhost has explained it, I understand.
Wish there was a way to save comments, this is on point.
Huh
Schoenberg basically said the same thing. Style is a byproduct of substance not the other way around.
"Intuition has to lead knowledge but it can't be out there on its own. On its own you're going to flounder sooner or later" - Bill Evans on NPR's Piano Jazz
Dude was deep. Real deep.
3:32 - "It is better to do something simple which is real" -- Bill Evans.
That kinda applies to life, too! IMHO. The best advice I ever got from the Jazz guitar masters, like Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel was to SING everything you play if you are a guitar player or keyboard player when soloing.
That connects you with something deeper within and it can be almost a mystical experience because the Latin word for spirit is spiritus, which means breath. Thus, you are connecting with your "spirit", so to speak, when you sing everything you play as a string player or keyboard player-- and this advice probably can be applied to any non-vocal or non-wind instrument. Peace.
very true. i remember the first time i experienced this kind of thing, playing straight form your head without even thinking and the music just flows just as easily as talking, without even looking at your hands. it's uplifting and ethereal.
way better than drugs if you ask me.
There are way too many pianists and guitarists who don't breathe when they play and instead produce an endless string of notes that leaves no room for anyone else to contribute.
Very cool. I had a teacher in college who said the same thing to me back in 1979. BTW, a sidebar---I got to meet Barney and Herb in Feb 1980 when the Great Guitars came and did a concert at my old alma mater, SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music. And....wait for it....I got to drive them for 5 hours to the Syracuse, NY airport the next day after the concert. What a couple of nice guys and very wise. It was 5 hours I'll never forget.
Playing singingly and using the ear is essential to be genuine. I can't sing with my voice while I play as a learning jazz trombonist, but I can "sing" through the instrument in how I play if I choose to. (Which is something I should always choose no doubt, but one of my faults is always trying to do more than what my ear hears for the sake of filling space.) Deciding how and especially WHEN I use certain articulations, small scoops, fast vs slow lines, when to repeat an idea or let it go, etc. is what is important and what I should do. I'm thankful for the reminder of this video, just want to say the advice applies to horns as well. I hope anyone who reads this has a good day
"Better to do something simple which is real" Yeah.
Steve Vai dissliked this 😂
Jaco Pastorius called it "wiggling your fingers" - playing with the illusion of technical prowess and, in reality, saying nothing (or, at best, an approximation of something). This interview series is so great! I'd rather listen to Bill Evans' playing than almost anyone else's. Hearing him speak his thoughts with such clarity makes me appreciate him that much more.
I love the way he develops his solo at 2:24! Such an amazing musician.
+Yes Box "something simple", he said.
Agreed; would expect nothing less from the man!
He was a genius
I think one of the hardest things for a musician to do is know when to leave the spaces. Bill is the all time master of 'less is more' jazz.
I personally would have to say Thelonious Monk was the master of said form, but Bill was indeed fantastic
very good advice. Ego is the worst enemy in learning anything. Drop your ego. Accept that your not advanced now. That's the only way to advance.
Love this discussion. Bill listens to his brother and empathizes about overplaying but goes back to keeping it simple as a general rule instead of being too busy. His brother talks about the enjoyment (to himself) and Bill agrees it is good to sometimes get outside the frame work but with an eye to what succeeds and what does not succeed. Wise
Isn`t it Great that there is knowledge like this on RUclips. A lot of times I just find Frivolity! Happy to have found this! I wish he was still with us too! Incredible!
My flute teacher, 1st flutist in Hartford Symphony, always said" Always go back to the basics." This is what makes a real musician. Sometimes music students/ musical novice lose track of this. We must walk before we run, crawl before we walk.
I don't think Bill is talking about emotion or being real/genuine here. In this discussion, I think he is talking about working hard in order to deeply understand the harmonies, intracacies, and movement of a piece so that you are never guessing or "approximating" as Bill puts it, about what your options are while improvising. It's like having a good idea of where you are driving your car versus knowing the area so well that you have a million options as to how to get there.
all of the things that you mentionned are tools you use to express "genuine emotion"
Mr. Evans-still alive in many musicians, that is his legacy-we should all do so well. Some of his most beautiful playing-as suggested here-not what you play, but what you don't play, listen to his intros on Kind of Blue with Miles Davis-Flamenco Sketches, Blue in Green, So What. He is composing a mini masterpiece while he is improvising! His thought process-how evolved it must have been. 2-3 measures of his playing-can be an entire study in harmony, voice leading and just plain gorgeous playing. And then when as a newbie I might think-well he was basically a ballad, chordal player-he plays a few measures of "bebop" lines-if you can call it that-and there goes that idea. The word "distillation" comes to mind. He could take an idea, distill its essential beauty and then create a live composition around it.
Keep it simple; understand the foundation of which your playing with and then elaborate, but REALLY understand the foundation of the framework your moving around. Fantastic advice.
It's like saying, "I'm finding that working out with these 10 lb. dumbells is sort of difficult and boring - let me try those heavier ones and do only exercises I'm not very familiar with."
If your goal is to bench 185 lbs, but you can only bench 160 lbs at most, you do not repeatedly attempt to bench 185 lbs until you're able to - you work your way up.
@@p.as.in.pterodactyl1024 Right...I probably should have said I was sardonically speaking in the voice of someone who was approaching things in the manner Evans was cautioning against.. Obviously, in my example, the practitioner should stick w/the 5-lb.ers, do more reps & work up to the 10s.
Accuracy as success in improvised music, how refreshing a viewpoint that is! If one starts with the notion that inaccurate playing cannot be sufficiently expressive, one will travel a LONG way down the road to genuine mastery. THEN if one wishes to move to open or free frameworks, one will have the necessary background to maneuver successfully in the Open Air. MBB
Do not try to skip steps. Brilliant man! No wonder he played such moving music.
I’ve got a couple kids and they aren't into jazz. But I played Bill Evans for them, and they say, 'Jesus, that's pretty good.' So I think it's great that people are just rediscovering Bill Evans, and I want people to rediscover Bill Evans. I think he's a great artist, and I think more people should listen to him and respect the beauty that he was able to create.
I think the problem of vagueness I've seen people comment on here, has to do with the fact that these guys are not using the specific TECHNICAL language of jazz theory to communicate their ideas to us all. But y'allz got to realise that these guys were so top flight (to use Bill's term) and so advanced that it may have been difficult to reach for those technical words, y'know, like scales, chord changes, 32nds, voicing, etc.
At least this is how I see it. Watch it enough times though to see if you will learn something valuable... for me, this video is highly insightful.
Nowhere do I see this more nowadays than in journalism. People who’ve seen smart sober people (their forebears) ask insightful challenging questions and make sound conclusions (or better yet offer no definitive conclusions) and rather than emulate the hard work and personal wrenching it takes to become as good, as honorable they just play the part by acting sober, by being challenging but not at appropriate times or about appropriate or worthwhile things.
Never seen a legend's highlight jazz video
giving such a short, essential intuition how those video came from.
言ってることはいたって平凡だけど、永遠に変わらない大切なことです。
Watching a genius at work is as humbling as it is inspiring... I was struck by the fact that the core of Evans' message, do something that is simple but real, is an echo of Keats' famous dictum, "Truth is beauty, beauty truth."
Bill Evan's masterclass on:
listening to structure,
keeping it simple and real, and not overplaying.
you missed the entire point
Very valuable advice from the Master to a beginner improviser! Thanks a lot, Bill !
Before I saw Bills interviews, I always thought he would be awkward and shy because of his photos and music. What a surprise when I first saw him talking in such a sophisticated and intelligent manner!
same
Coltrane said in an interview that he was working on a lot of different things at the same time and that he wasn’t comfortable playing them so he played everything at once.
Bill and his music educator brother in conversation! Gold!
Great ideas! Timeless concepts...
This has got to be the best advice to any experimenting jazz pianist. Not to mention coming from the master himself. Thanks for posting!
Bill is expressing something very precisely - I'm not sure why his brother Harry seems to have trouble understanding what he's saying. Basically, it's to have a firm grasp of what you're playing, from the beginning, starting with simple building blocks and then progress from there. This is important if one wants to avoid playing a bunch of bull shit that's meant to impress, but can't, because it's built on a faulty foundation. This way you can feel the reality of what you're playing, and others will, too. It's not just, as he says, an approximation, it's the real thing, and then from there you build. Bill is brilliant, and that's an understatement.
***** yup, just like any good interviewer. You take the opposite side in order to create more interesting and full responses.
Really, what makes you think he didn't understand Bill, hmm? I don't see any of that here. I see very stimulating questions, with precise answers from Bill making this a very interesting interview.
Yeah, goes both ways... projection is a universal human trait.
TheObserver Because Harry thought Bill was talking about "overplaying", that's the word that Harry used (which he said he personally was guilty of). I don't think that's really what Bill was talking about - he was talking about playing in a "vague, un-focused, not clearly conscious way", there's a significant difference. This is a great interview, though - it's nice to not have an interviewer who simply is worshiping his idol and nods his head to everything he says - perhaps a little sibling rivalry works well in this case..
+Maxim Calixte Harry had schizophrenia
I reckon what he's saying is that you have to know clearly what you are playing, and what emotion it stirs up. "You have to know what you're doing"
Thank goodness for these instructional films!!
Wow, he was making a GREAT point. Such and articulated guy. Love it. Thanks!
As somebody who fell hard for felt improvisation and drifted away from theoretical frames, this is a wake up call. I might be able to freely explore countless possibilities with my instruments, but then it's really hard to bring all of that home into a composition.
How can you actually dislike this vid ?
+Spike Club envy that you'll never comprehend it
out of ignorance, arrogance, naivety, dullness
It was Stanley Crouch.
If you dislike this vid, you must be Trump or something....
have a listen to the shagg's "philosophy of the world" it explains everything
That's some of the reasons why I like Mick Goodrick and Bill Evans so much. Not so much about talent, but improvement. Not everyone can be a great musician but everyone has the potential to improve, and that is more important. Thanks for sharing.
Should be mandatory watching for every jazz musician on this planet
I am learning difficult Chopin pieces these days. Same hold true for that. At first, play them in a way that I understand it, maybe not even necessarily how it’s written, but with the chord changes, and then as I get more used to hearing and knowing the chord changes, go for more exactness of how it’s written, and then go for tempo. And have fun all the while!
I had to watch this video a few times to really absorb all of what he was saying..but I'm so glad I did. This video has helped me tremendously. Bill Evans will forever be one of my favorites.
ほんとに何事に置いても基礎は大事だし小手先の技術にばかり頼るのは良くないよな……心に刺さる……
Very true and inspiring... one of my favourite videos ever. And you can apply it everywhere! I really love the way he shows this little thought
It looks like what he's saying is "keep it simple", and it's partly that but it's also more profound. "Keep it simple" would be just a stylistic choice. What he's really saying is that you have to make sure that you are in total control of the notes that you're playing, at any time, you have to know why you're playing this note and not that one. You have to have an absolutely clear idea in your head, and make your fingers play it in the exact way it is intended to be, instead of letting your fingers do an "approximation" of that idea, with random notes that are informed more by habits and "muscle memory". The result is often more simple, also memorable and sing-able, but it's not just about simplicity, not always anyway. It's about having a full understanding of what you are playing.
From my knowledge, I interpret what Bill is saying here as also being related to the shift from the swing era (a more basic 2-5-1 harmonic structure) to the bop style i.e. (2(2-5)5(2-5)1) - a more complex harmonic structure, and to modal which to my mind is really back to a more simple structure but where the full extend of chord tones are utilized as there was more time to explore them without the changes frequently changing. But I think what he is saying is that instead of just jumping into playing all these extra chords etc, you first have to understand why or how they work. This is just what I gather and I don't think anybody should take my interpretation too seriously as I myself am trying to get my head around all this stuff and am merely a student of this art. But I do love this video though, the guy could really play it all, a true genius
No offense but I think you missed the point. This is not a critique of musical styles or fashions.
What he is saying here is just as true in music as it is in any of our life pursuits. Its amazing that he can just as expressive in language as he is in his music.
Billy will start talking, then walk over to a piano, and you’ll hear the rest of the sentence he was saying.
This man is the best pianist in the world.
I like the idea of working with the tools you have and saying what you need to say. While steadily improving.
Watched twice, just realized most (90%) of the dub step [evil techno] I was listening to was programming my mind to fail... now that I'm back to jazz, funk, blues, sitar Indian music. I feel sooo gooood :) :) :)
The point he makes here, should be written on plaques and hang on top of every music school s doorstep.
Re-watching this interview, at least once a year!
I think that by keeping it simple and real he means that one should play what he/she hears in their mind instead of running through scales or playing random licks that we don’t really understand. Playing what you hear or sing in your mind is the realest expression of one’s musicality. It’s difficult to get to that level of course. This is what I absorbed from what he is saying.
After a couple of videos I have realized that I don't only love his playing, I also love his talking...
One of the most important videos to me on RUclips.
" the point is what are u satisfied with".
Bill Evan's style is minimalistic.
Bill's approach is a lot like Mile's- the more space you leave between the notes, the more meaning the notes have. The space creates air in the music, and allows it to breathe.
Horn players have to stop to breathe, whereas pianists, guitarists, and drummers don't have to, so tend to play far too many notes.
A lot of it comes down to insecurity as well, and trying to impress.
agree.....really taking a breath for all musicians is important as it gives the listener the chance to mentally catch up and feel the emotion...of what your are saying...like a conversation......
Reminds me of the movie Amadeus.
*comes up with an amazing piece*
"I don't like it... because it simply has too many notes."
lol
This is Debussy's approach....
great point, never thought about it that way
That's a very good point, start simple and build from what you know. Most players have licks they play in different ways, but since they are not their licks they depend on effects or vibrato or volume to build their solo. When it's your simple idea it's easy to control and add to a finally.
what an intellectual and talent - where ppl like him today?
The best jazz pianist ever
Better than Nate King Cole? Better than Herbie? Beer in mind...Bill in my top 3.
I heard Lyle Mays say that Bills Evans was the only pianist worth listening to. He and Pat Metheny wrote a song in his memory called "September 15".
This is incredible and applying it everyday is the key .Beautiful video .
Thanks for these gems of truth, Bill.
I’ll really take his words and remind myself to take substantial steps when learning jazz and everything else
Very insightful... I feel a LOT of Musicians get caught up in the "vagueness" factor.
It's MUCH better for a musician to keep things more "simple" and "real" than attempting to "approximate" a result that is beyond their command and full understanding.
This goes for any player in any given style of music.
I love his enthusiasm for intellect and emotions
You listen to Bill play and you hear all those notes, all those changes, and it's overwhelming. If you know a little about music, it's like drinking from a fire hose. For a casual listener, I imagine that much of it can sound like noise, especially his later, live recordings.
Those late recordings are misleading, by the way. Bill died in 1980, but publishers have been pumping out Bill Evans records ever since, mixing tracks from outtakes and live performances. If you have an interest in his music, start with his trio work from 1960 onward -- Moonbeams, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Waltz for Debby, and the solo creation, Conversations With Myself. I enjoyed his work with tenor man, Stan Getz, and I should mention the essential Miles Davis, Kind of Blue.
You can learn more by simply listening to what he's playing and the process that inspires it than you can from listening to him speak.
''something simple''
Aahahahaha
If I could only play that "simple"...
Jupiter Le Grand try the first half of „One note samba“ :)
These words really opened my eyes to alot of what im doing wrong. Wise words
interesting use of "vagueness" here, i never thought about musical vagueness before but he hit the nail right on the head.
he has a very intriguing way of analyzing the creative process, and the way he effortlessly glides over the changes....well let the music be its own commentary:) masterfull musician!
Of course, the "simple" part for Bill is near impossible for the rest of us.
何事も基本が大切なんですね、よく考えてらっしゃる。益々尊敬しました。
He struggles to simulate the vague approximation ha. But what a wonderful lesson for us in all things. Fascinating how the host misses the point, saying he doesn't have time for fundamentals, so he must overplay.
he’s true about the fundamentals, they’re quite meditative and are very beneficial. obviously most of our practice time should be learning new skills, don’t get this wrong.
Expressiveness creates space.
Awesome comments by a master player and thinker. This will help me in my own musical development. It provides a template for true self evaluation and serves as a guide to actual implementation.
that "simple" thing he does at 2:25 is a manifesto of what all of us as jazz musicians can only hope to achieve someday LOL
@GameLevelEditor Amen! I've been playing guitar, bass and drums for 20 years now, and I learned how by playing along with my dad's Beatles and Beach Boys records. I still can't read music, but I feel like I have a much greater understanding of and appreciation for dynamics than a lot of others who just read the tabs and banged it out. Playing music is just as much about listening and feeling as it is about the mechanics of what your hands are doing.
already an accomplishment to UNDERSTAND what he plays...
I LOVE Bill's impression of the "top flight pianists"
Pretty interesting how this generalises to so many different things outside of piano and music
Great advice for the musician, and for life in general.
I think when he says "real" here, Bill means "genuine". The whole point of the creative process.. and all song writing to a larger extent is about being real (I think he means original and genuine) and focusing on simplicity to build a flexible and dynamic framework. Like every great science or art, the fundamentals are always the most important, simple because everything else hinges and draws their value from their capacity in their combined possibilities.
@TheEarlOfDublin ; I think Harry understands perfectly well....He's just reacting as a teacher, to what his own students want to do...and Bill Evans is insisting that keeping interpretations simple and true, is the right way to proceed...and the best way for students of jazz piano to guard against getting lost in meaningless abstraction.
Bill's insistence on creating something true and real is the essence of great art. I especially like the part about creating confusion and not being able to escape. He got lot of pushback from the host, because the host and other musicians make popcorn and that's how they survive, and it has that instant appeal, but popcorn doesn't feed the soul. An example of the opposite of popcorn are the songs on "Kind of Blue." I'm not saying popcorn is bad and "Kind of Blue" is the ultimate. They are just different, but while I would miss popcorn, I think the world would be just a bit less interesting if we didn't have folks like Bill Evans who take the hard road that we may not have the courage or temerity to pursue.
I like the "simple" improv he plays better than anything else
A rare genius. beauty pushed to the limit.
This is brilliant and applies to any endeavor.
True musicians are always true to himself
I remember first hearing this interview back in 2007 or so and thinking I already knew he was musically brilliant but brah, he’s a genius. And I believe that the interviewer is his brother who committed suicide eventually. Very unfortunate case of severe depression, both brothers had issues. Bill struggled with various addictions.
To build a beautiful home, one must first become adept at building a solid foundation.
A long time ago, a bass player told me to "play to express, not to impress". It sounds like Bil is saying that in a different way. Sometimes it's better to improvises a coherent melody rather than blast a bunch of melodic patterns and try to show everyone how clever you are.
It's as if I'm experiencing deja-vou listening to his creative process. When I attempted piano my grandfather, who was mentored by Bill for some time, explained the process word for word. Get the fundamentals and add on.
The great Bill Evans.
This is the kind of television that we are loosing. The one television not only talks about important themes. This kind of TV also aloud the producers and the talent to give themselves the trust of letting go into a place where the people as an audience can find an answer of their own. This is thinking TV. which we are loosing for many years now in exchange for just for mere entertainment. Even News are presented as an entertainment.
Funny just restarted playing a simple song color my world and learn to play it without thinking to much by knowing the cords and the lines instead of memorizing the notes and not knowing its lines. Simply analyzing and knowing make me much more confident in playing the song 😎