thebanishedone said:

MoodyBlumes said:

How do your buddies feel about opera?

Here is Miles' son Erin speaking on Purple Rain (Miles had Erin learn 1999, the album): Clip | Miles Davis Loved ... - YouTube

.

There are many who don't find anything special about much of jazz - not everyone is Miles Davis or Duke Ellington.

.

Prince came to Owen Husney playing 20 minute songs, and Owen told him to write nursery rhymes. Seems to have worked out in the end, your taste is simple music for the masses. Which greats do you find to be showing off?

u c Steak my friend,i warned you some of the crazy fanatics will go hard on you. thwere are people who only listen to Prince

Well that's interesting dude, because I don't post a tenth of what you do on this forum, or spend my time poring over Facebook concerned about what people are posting on Prince.

.

As a jazz aficionado, why aren't you on the jazz forums? You posted a link to a Bill Connors tune which would put many to sleep, but are going on about Steve Vai and Eddie VH not measuring up?

[Edited 4/15/21 4:50am]

tab32792 said:

I guess since the original question is, did we overrate him. Hell no. He is the goat. Not because of one thing in particular but because of all those things combined

Agreed. I tried making a similar point, but you summed it up better than I did.

tab32792 said:

We got an elitist on our hands folks lol first of all no. We didn’t do anything. You’re making your opinion a general train of thought. With that said, technicality does not equal better musician. Idk where you got that or who told you that but it isn’t true. Prince said he never wanted to learn to read music as he said it would change the way he wrote. Now what is your meter of what a good musician is? Lol. And why do you think you’re qualified to say Prince wasn’t that good of one? Inventing new shit doesn’t = better. Coming first doesn’t either. Prince was proficient at at least 4 instruments (bass, drums, piano/keyboards and guitar. I would say of the 4, drums being his weakest. Despite that he was a very proficient drummer. Check the first 4 songs on parade or the madhouse album. He was strongest at guitar and bass then piano/keyboards. Tricks and athletics are bullshit too. If you can’t make me feel anything playing those notes, all that pretty theatrical shit doesn’t matter. Why do we (society) gauge being a good musician off going to school etc. Most black musicians can’t and couldn’t read music. Why? 1, they didn’t need to and 2, that shit was made up by white folks. We can hear and feel music and play by ear. Don’t need all them charts. Maybe I am bias but idk a better or more versatile guitar player than Prince. He could solo of course but his rhythm playing is unmatched. He wasn’t the best bass or piano/keyboard player or drummer but damnit he is pretty great especially considering he was self taught. I’d much rather listen to him on bass than Jaco lol You named all those white players lol Steve vai jaco, Dave garibaldi, but then again I’m not surprised. Whiteness is always the level that we (black people) are often compared to unfortunately. You wanna talk about studio innovation? Look at his drum machine work from 81-89. Start there. On top of all that, who do you know is THAT great on all the instruments they play? Come on man. Why are we even having this convo? Lol

So if i can name a few dozen people who playbetter than Prince i'm an elitist? lol ok. Reading music is white folks shit?So Herbie Hancock must be dumb because he is black and he learned that"white people bullshit". do you even realise how dumb you statement is ? you say Prince's rhythm guitar playing is unmatched? Check from the 14th minute how this guy play rhythm guitar than come back and tell me how Prince as a rhythm guitar player is umatched : https://www.youtube.com/w...amp;t=963s Prince didn't learn to read music and if you think that is a + for Prince than good 4 u. But if he knew how to read music his musicality would be even better just by reading other people's charts he could see all different kind of shapes and intervals tha he would never use otherwise. Not being able to read music is not a blessing it's a handicap .

[Edited 4/15/21 7:20am]

banishedone said:

Germanegro said:

Musical notes are merely transcription--the translation of a form onto the page, a component of the language of music. Those who create and perform the music without such transcriptions may be limited in what they READ and the efficiency of communicating their ideas and forms, but that is about the only creative "limitation" that I can see toward leaving transcriptions out of the equation of music. If a musician were to create a symphonic score in a long-form piece of work then note charts would be most helpful toward mapping the course of work. This skill was outside of Prince's ability and his awareness of that led him to obtain the input of those who could score. Prince's magnificent mind would translate the scores into wonderful accompaniment to his own shapes to compliment those forms. So that should be viewed as a kind of bad habit and a cripiling deficiency in one's instrument performance? To me that is what you seem to be saying and I would disagree with that. banishedone said:

So if i can name a few dozen people who playbetter than Prince i'm an elitist? lol ok. Reading music is white folks shit?So Herbie Hancock must be dumb because he is black and he learned that"white people bullshit". do you even realise how dumb you statement is ? you say Prince's rhythm guitar playing is unmatched? Check from the 14th minute how this guy play rhythm guitar than come back and tell me how Prince as a rhythm guitar player is umatched : https://www.youtube.com/w...amp;t=963s Prince didn't learn to read music and if you think that is a + for Prince than good 4 u. But if he knew how to read music his musicality would be even better just by reading other people's charts he could see all different kind of shapes and intervals tha he would never use otherwise. Not being able to read music is not a blessing it's a handicap .

[Edited 4/15/21 7:20am]

no.what i want to say music notes are like letters,when you read notaton by other music composers you can get ideas and solutions that otherwise you woudn't have.

thebanishedone said:

thebanishedone said:

Thebanishedone said:

thebanishedone said:

Germanegro said:

no.what i want to say music notes are like letters,when you read notaton by other music composers you can get ideas and solutions that otherwise you woudn't have.

Reading other people's work can also have the opposite effect, limiting your perspective and pointing you toward cliched, over-used solutions. Avoiding other people's work can allow you to be more creative by freeing you from the shackles of convention.

There are certain things Prince does with his music that go against what you might be taught in a music theory class. Because he wasn't formally trained, he didn't know the things he was doring were "wrong". Basing his music on sound and feel, rather than on "rules" he would have been taught in a formal class, allowed Prince to push the envelop and be more creative.

lurker316 said:

Germanegro said:

LOLZ--good point. He had some great teachers--father, mother, community folk and performance greats that he was exposed to, yup!

>

MoodyBlumes said:

Germanegro said:

Lol--I remember reading a recount by Wendy Melvoin--who had the formal musical education--thinking, "does he know what he just did" in amazed reaction to some concert event, rehersal or recording that Prince had done. I think that kind of reaction by the formally trained musician toward the man's composition or improvisation or technique illuminates lurker316's statement.

Prince was formally trained - just didn't have the money to have someone else tell him what to play. [Edited 4/15/21 9:25am]

Germanegro said:

LOLZ--good point. He had some great teachers--father, mother, community folk and performance greats that he was exposed to, yup!

>

MoodyBlumes said:

Germanegro said: Prince was formally trained - just didn't have the money to have someone else tell him what to play. [Edited 4/15/21 9:25am]

.

[Edited 4/15/21 9:56am]

You underestimate his years spent playing covers, since he was twelve.
Dude was a juke-box.

A lot of chord progressions, sequences, intros,
codas, 7th minor, 9th, 11th etc.
used in Soul, Pop and Rock were already in his hands and brain
(see 1979 ICNTTPOYM).

For someone who is supposedly "untrained",
that's just bullshit. It's been in bios for years,
he followed musical class.

If you need more proof, go take a listen at the many soundboards:
Prince tells his musicians the chords on the fly, even complex ones.
And improvises on the keyboard in F sharp, B flat, D major,
all the twelve are present in his records.

Prince fucking KNOWS his music theory.
Let's get this straight once and for all.
It's everywhere, on his lyrics notebooks.

Take "For You", the song, have a transcriptor
lay out the 16 parts (More? Less?) on conductor's sheets,
and apply for Berkeley Music College in Arrangement Class.
See if you don't get admitted on the fly.

The thread should be renamed "Prince the Instrumentist".
As a musician, I don't think you have a straight idea
of all the genres Prince mastered, you haven't listen to enough stuff live.

In his 76-77 bootlegs, he's just amazing technically for a guy his age.
Bass, drums, guitar, everything is flawless.
There's a reason why WB signed him with a pharaonic contract.
It's just so obvious. Whatever instrument he plays,
Prince makes it sound EXCITING.

I don't hear no groove in Corea's stuff.
If there is one, it's either a base to show off with solos,
a standard reworked, or some shit you'll never remember
having hearing a few years from now. And so it goes with
most of "savant" or "prodigies" music.

At just 20, Prince could have embark on a session musician career,
and become an extraordinary good one.

Again, have him, like every other instrumentist, pursue one single

career in the perfecting and the mastery of a single instrument, no doubt
everyone would rank Prince #3 (or higher) as the "Greatest Guitarist",
or some other bullshit list.

Prince chose to pursue many careers.
Some are desperate to take it as an excuse
to diminish Prince the Guitarist.

All these so-called "prodigies", the Vais and such, guys that play at 300 bpm
and sell records confidentially (of course. What kind of masochist
listens to a guy making scales on his axe at 300bpm,
and modulates non-stop because well, it sounds clever?)...

They can only present one life achievement:
to have been sponsored by a guitar strings brand, or for the luckiest ones,
have a guitar model with their name on it ("signature", the call it.)

I despise these crooks. Their place was either in Jazz or classical,
but they chose the easily impressed market, the lazy career,
and here they are, dressing as rockers, trying to make
their lame gimmicks (ascending and descending scales,
watch out, here's a mixolydian, wait, what about a sextolet?)
make any sense. It's "surface" music. It's pleasant,
it's impeccably crafted, but also desesperately verbose.

God how much these guys like to listen to themselves.
There are definitely "too many notes", except Mozart it ain't, Baby.

They may very well be musicians,
but to them it's their 9 to 5 job.
Not to say Chick Corea isn't taking pleasure or giving pleasure,
but this is all so fucking serious.

Satriani or Vai ain't teenage angst.
You gotta be already old at fifteen to grow up and like this.

It's like Jazz' polite applause after every solo, originally it was
twenty-something bourgeois ripping the venue's seats apart.
It was mayhem. Cannonball Adderley was getting
dudes screaming worse than Beatlemania.
Jazz Club smelled like sweat and booze and smoke.
And even more dangers.

Then a generation of antiseptic jazz musicians appear,
the lazy ones will become session players (the Toto bozos), and display

their pretentiousness in horrors like "Thriller", the best-selling
album of all time precisely because it's innocuous, there's something in it
for the kid, there's something in it for GranMa, for your sister,
this is a product guaranteed to please all ears.




Anyway, back to Skipper.

By 1978, writing down the parts of "For You" would have been a waste of time.
This is multi-track recorded music.
It's simple as that.

Why would Prince waste time to call a transcriptor (or write the parts himself),
who then will have to send it to the keyboard player, to the bassist, etc. ...
when he can just hit "record" and play?

Sure, transcriptors were required more and more by the time PP was built,
for horn parts, for keyboard parts...
The musicians accompanying Prince in concert needed to practice the repertoire,
and we know it goes in the hundred to know by heart.
You never hear of a session musician having to work all year round.

Not very rock'n'roll, right? This is the kind of discipline you

find in "serious" musicianship.


Prince doesn't go as fast or doesn't modulate ten times in the same bar?
So? His solos are a thousand times more exciting
than the whole discography of any of these dodecacophonic blue collars.

Germanegro said:

LOLZ--good point. He had some great teachers--father, mother, community folk and performance greats that he was exposed to, yup!

>

MoodyBlumes said:

Germanegro said: Prince was formally trained - just didn't have the money to have someone else tell him what to play. [Edited 4/15/21 9:25am]

He had some actual teachers.

He talks about learning scales here.

He had a vocal coach.

He knew how to write music (he just didn't bother).


Can we stop with this "untrained"' bullshit already?

[Edited 4/15/21 10:28am]

Oh--yes, yes, yes. He did have music classes to learn theory. Prince did say that his problem was sight-reading--again, with the reading what to play and that was not his thing to do.

bonatoc said:

Germanegro said:

LOLZ--good point. He had some great teachers--father, mother, community folk and performance greats that he was exposed to, yup!

>

He had some actual teachers.

He talks about learning scales here.

Can we stop we the "untrained"' bullshit now?

bonatoc said:

You underestimate his years spent playing covers, since he was twelve.
Dude was a juke-box.

A lot of chord progressions, sequences, intros,
codas, 7th minor, 9th, 11th etc.
used in Soul, Pop and Rock were already in his hands and brain
(see 1979 ICNTTPOYM).

For someone who is supposedly "untrained",
that's just bullshit. It's been in bios for years,
he followed musical class.

If you need more proof, go take a listen at the many soundboards:
Prince tells his musicians the chords on the fly, even complex ones.
And improvises on the keyboard in F sharp, B flat, D major,
all the twelve are present in his records.

Prince fucking KNOWS his music theory.
Let's get this straight once and for all.
It's everywhere, on his lyrics notebooks.

Take "For You", the song, have a transcriptor
lay out the 16 parts (More? Less?) on conductor's sheets,
and apply for Berkeley Music College in Arrangement Class.
See if you don't get admitted on the fly.

The thread should be renamed "Prince the Instrumentist".
As a musician, I don't think you have a straight idea
of all the genres Prince mastered, you haven't listen to enough stuff live.

In his 76-77 bootlegs, he's just amazing technically for a guy his age.
Bass, drums, guitar, everything is flawless.
There's a reason why WB signed him with a pharaonic contract.
It's just so obvious. Whatever instrument he plays,
Prince makes it sound EXCITING.

I don't hear no groove in Corea's stuff.
If there is one, it's either a base to show off with solos,
a standard reworked, or some shit you'll never remember
having hearing a few years from now. And so it goes with
most of "savant" or "prodigies" music.

At just 20, Prince could have embark on a session musician career,
and become an extraordinary good one.

Again, have him, like every other instrumentist, pursue one single

career in the perfecting and the mastery of a single instrument, no doubt
everyone would rank Prince #3 (or higher) as the "Greatest Guitarist",
or some other bullshit list.

Prince chose to pursue many careers.
Some are desperate to take it as an excuse
to diminish Prince the Guitarist.

All these so-called "prodigies", the Vais and such, guys that play at 300 bpm
and sell records confidentially (of course. What kind of masochist
listens to a guy making scales on his axe at 300bpm,
and modulates non-stop because well, it sounds clever?)...

They can only present one life achievement:
to have been sponsored by a guitar strings brand, or for the luckiest ones,
have a guitar model with their name on it ("signature", the call it.)

I despise these crooks. Their place was either in Jazz or classical,
but they chose the easily impressed market, the lazy career,
and here they are, dressing as rockers, trying to make
their lame gimmicks (ascending and descending scales,
watch out, here's a mixolydian, wait, what about a sextolet?)
make any sense. It's "surface" music. It's pleasant,
it's impeccably crafted, but also desesperately verbose.

God how much these guys like to listen to themselves.
There are definitely "too many notes", except Mozart it ain't, Baby.

They may very well be musicians,
but to them it's their 9 to 5 job.
Not to say Chick Corea isn't taking pleasure or giving pleasure,
but this is all so fucking serious.

Satriani or Vai ain't teenage angst.
You gotta be already old at fifteen to grow up and like this.

It's like Jazz' polite applause after every solo, originally it was
twenty-something bourgeois ripping the venue's seats apart.
It was mayhem. Cannonball Adderley was getting
dudes screaming worse than Beatlemania.
Jazz Club smelled like sweat and booze and smoke.
And even more dangers.

Then a generation of antiseptic jazz musicians appear,
the lazy ones will become session players (the Toto bozos), and display

their pretentiousness in horrors like "Thriller", the best-selling
album of all time precisely because it's innocuous, there's something in it
for the kid, there's something in it for GranMa, for your sister,
this is a product guaranteed to please all ears.




Anyway, back to Skipper.

By 1978, writing down the parts of "For You" would have been a waste of time.
This is multi-track recorded music.
It's simple as that.

Why would Prince waste time to call a transcriptor (or write the parts himself),
who then will have to send it to the keyboard player, to the bassist, etc. ...
when he can just hit "record" and play?

Sure, transcriptors were required more and more by the time PP was built,
for horn parts, for keyboard parts...
The musicians accompanying Prince in concert needed to practice the repertoire,
and we know it goes in the hundred to know by heart.
You never hear of a session musician having to work all year round.

Not very rock'n'roll, right? This is the kind of discipline you

find in "serious" musicianship.


Prince doesn't go as fast or doesn't modulate ten times in the same bar?
So? His solos are a thousand times more exciting
than the whole discography of any of these dodecacophonic blue collars.

Agree with a lot of this. And glad to hear you like Cannonball Adderley, I do too - Prince's cousin Louis Hayes played in his band, and now keeps the torch burning running the Cannonball Adderley Legacy Band.

You know, Prince had so much music flowing in his mind that I think it may have inhibited his settling into an improv-supergroup band scheme. He would always want to change things up--the music that others would play, constantly arranging/re-arranging in his mind.

>

He and Esperanza Spaulding talked about having that same bug. With that similarity being shared between them, I wonder what it is that separated Esparanza's launch into gigging from Prince's--you know, beyond age and geography (lol).

>

I think that Ms. Spaulding has been getting more into the Prince-kind-of-vibe in her performance lately too, by the way, incorporating more staging production to her live act presenting her last 2 projects, a la Purple Rain, Sign 'O' the Times, Lovsexy and all those crazy videos that Prince filmed in pairing a bit of theater with his song.

>

So I wonder if we could have underrated his influence in that light--the music presentation. His music would inform its style of staging. Could that be far-fetched or too off-topic? I guess it's something for another thread exploration.

MoodyBlumes said:

olb99 said:

.

Wrong.

Nope

.

Well, I saw him in Montreux in 2012, 2015, and 2019. Does that count?

.

His performance in 2019 was absolutely fantastic.

.

Anyway, why are we talking about Chick? Can't we love both Prince and Chick Corea? What's your point?

Germanegro said:

You know, Prince had so much music flowing in his mind that I think it may have inhibited his settling into an improv-supergroup band scheme. He would always want to change things up--the music that others would play, constantly arranging/re-arranging in his mind.

>

He and Esperanza Spaulding talked about having that same bug. With that similarity being shared between them, I wonder what it is that separated Esparanza's launch into gigging from Prince's--you know, beyond age and geography (lol).

>

I think that Ms. Spaulding has been getting more into the Prince-kind-of-vibe in her performance lately too, by the way, incorporating more staging production to her live act presenting her last 2 projects, a la Purple Rain, Sign 'O' the Times, Lovsexy and all those crazy videos that Prince filmed in pairing a bit of theater with his song.

>

So I wonder if we could have underrated his influence in that light--the music presentation. His music would inform its style of staging. Could that be far-fetched or too off-topic? I guess it's something for another thread exploration.

his music presentation was outstanding. Who said that Prince didn't know theory? he didn't know how to read yes but the scales he used when playing was dorian ,lydian,phrygian,mixolidian and mixing in some chromatic.so Prince was better than most of guitar players in popular music when it comes to theory.

I used to think that you should not care about music rules and more you know ,than you are more aware of how much you don't know but Herbie Hancock said an interesting thing"if you want to break the rules you gotta do it with responsibility.

When Danny Elfman was asked to make a score together with Prince he refused and he was let go.After 1 month Danny got a call.He got a call because my guess is Prince's score was not up to the standards of what was required.Danny said he loves Prince but working with a pop musician would mean that he would have to score Prince's melodies cause that how it works with pop musicians.the irony is Danny is a pop musician as well,much less talented than Prince but harder worker. I don't like Steve Vai and Satriani,Steve Vai's first 1984 album was the only honest album he ever made. i hate when guitar players play fast guitar excercises that have no sense,but i love when guitar player plays with soul passion,fire and when he knows what he is doing. relaying on a feel is a good thing but there comes a point where beside your intuition actually knowing from theoretic perspective what notes fit actually does help a lot .Prince is still one of my favourite guitar players but i think it's his presentation,delivery,passion and fire is what makes him great.what makes him believable . i don't agree that Chic didn't have groove in his soud.he had a lot of groove.check this out : https://www.youtube.com/w...pAQmSNYev4

lurker316 said:

bonatoc said:

Excuse but isn't reading (books) one of the best ways to expand your knowledge regarding the subjects you are interested in? Why is different when it comes to music. I'm not saying it's a must.Paul Mccartney wrote Yesterday and he couldn't read.

Prince didn't need formal education to achive what he achived. But if you don't see that around Rave era he got stuck in a routine. What i want to say maybe he didn't need education for the first 10,15 years of his career but do you think if he learned how to read it would affect his output in a negative way.

For example Prince is on a plane ,he reads music notations of various composers and he goes like"i can do that?" or "so thats how they do it.

I think learning how to read can never be a bad thing .yes it would have changed his modus operandi but are we sure it would change for the worse?

And after all when Wendy visited P Park in 2014 or 2015 she was surprised that all musicians had musical notations in front of them. She was like "wow much different than when i was here.

i can even bet that when those guys got the job 1 of the questions was "do you know how to read ? "

I don't think reading music is more important than ear.a great ear is a big advance in music and Prince had that. so those guys who could read didn't mean they can improvise with a better feel than Prince.

A guy like Prince could have mastered reading in 10,15 days. and i really don't see mastering that aspect of music can be a bad thing.

He already had a great ear so...

Just to let you know guys 5 years ago Steve Albini Nirvanas producer wrote on twitter that Prince's music is poison and he is a little dwarf with assless pants. i responded to him"Steve i totally undrstand you Prince plays guitar on a level you can only dream,so before you dare to say anything about Prince at least learn a little bit how to play guitar . and Steve anwered "oohh fuck off" lol

so everywhere else i will be on Prince's side. when i was a kid i had a friend who always dissmised Price in order just to piss me off.i got offended and we didn't talk for a year. when he heard The Rainbow Children he become Prince's biggest fan.

I only wanted to have a normal discussion with my fellow orgers and i really don't understand is it hard to discuss with some opinions or facts instead of going fo insults.i mean if some of you feel better or more devouted to Purple Fandom ok but all that glitters ain't gold.

Jimmy Jam recalling Prince reading sheet music:

Jimmy Jam on Rocking Out ... Billboard

.

I met Prince, think I was in seventh grade and we were in a piano class together, which was ironic since we both already knew how to play piano. So it was a way to get us out of class for an hour, which was pretty cool. And the teacher would give us some sheet music, "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or something real simple -- "London Bridge" -- and would say, “Go ahead and learn that song.” And of course as soon as the teacher went out of the room we’d start jamming on the keyboards and having a lot of fun. And I was always blown way with Prince’s talent. I thought I was pretty good at keyboards, my dad played, but he could play rings around me. And then I remember that I didn’t know he played any other instruments. There was a school play and they needed a band put together to play for it and so they said, “What do you want to play?” And I said, “I’ll play drums.” And Prince looked at me kind of like, “I didn’t know you played drums,” and he said, “I’ll play guitar.” And I looked at him like, “Wow, I didn’t know you played guitar."

.

So we put this little band together and we started working and the thing that blew me away is Prince gets on the guitar and the first thing he does is he plugs in and plays the solo from “Make Me Smile,” the big Chicago record, and one of those solos where if you can play that solo you really know how to play guitar. So he kills this solo, just absolutely rips it. We take a break and I go to the bathroom, and I hear someone on the drums and I’m thinking it's probably the music teacher at the time and I walk out and it’s Prince on the drums and he’s absolutely lighting the drums on fire. I come back in and he hands me the drumsticks and I’m like, “ Oh my God, I’m so done now.” This dude was just amazing. He could play any instrument better than people who actually played that instrument, and that was a theme that continued through the local band scene when were in competitive bands and when we started working with him, when we put the Time together, and started recording with him. He would take the bass and show Terry a bass line and hand the bass back to Terry and Terry looked at it like he’d never seen a bass in his life. Just his musicianship was on a level of really nobody else. The way he played with so much aggression and force and emotion, was really unparalleled. When people say they knew at an early age he was going to be really good, I can really say it because I saw it, I heard it.

Just a quick reply, I've always thought he was not a great recording artist, as I always felt he didn't put enough care into his albums, or try working with different producers. This was confirmed by engineers who worked with him, they said he wasn't that precious with his recordings and how his stuff sounded at times. What I'm always amazed by however, is the sheer quantity of music he created. The varing quality might be ring true but, imagine being able to create that much new music from your head. As a Live performer, I don't think anyone at that level can Be quationed that much. I mean, the musicianship of his concerts always amazed me, being a non musical person myself. I mean, the lovesexy shows, sign of the times etc. However, what I will always agree with is, that he should have done more recordings done as a band. I'm not saying he wasn't great but, hell, he toured with great musicians, why not use them on an album more. It's what made him a great live act, the bands that he played with !. That wasn't very quick was it lol. Take care all.

[Edited 4/15/21 13:46pm]