Yesterday was the last day of the Jazz & Rhythm Festival @ Sunrise Mnt. Kiara. it's gonna be a very boring weekend for me next week. The only thing that I've been looking forward to is a good night with live jazz bands without having to spend to much money. Call me stingy but I'm still studying and living off my parents cash. I don't really mind paying if I had the cash to enjoy a good dosage of music. For those who are insterested in jazz, I suggest you go to
www.alldatjazz.com. A great site with loads of updates on our local jazz scene.
For those of you that have been wondering what is jazz all about? Well, I'm gonna do a post today to give some of you a brief idea on how to listen and appreciate jazz. Before I go on, I would just like to say what ever I'm going to say now is roughly my own way to appreaciate jazz. It might be right, it might be wrong, so if any of you has something to say about it, comments are welcome :)
"Everything sounds messy la..", "Why sound so weird one wei?", "Sounds damn coplicated la..", those were coming out from friends who were still new to jazz. I can understand why cause I was one of them last time. heh! :P To help solve that problem, I'm going to break down my explanation into different points.
Smooth Jazz- before you start listening to heavy jazz stuff, try listening to smooth jazz first. A jazz style that is simple and relaxing. Some would call it louge music. Mostly played at the hotel lobby and most fine dining restaurants. Well if you want, you can also go looking around for Smooth Jazz compilation CDs. Easy and sweet melody to follow for a start.
Groove- listen to the groove or rhythm of that tune. You'll feel yourself naturaly moving to it. The only thing that stops your from feeling the groove is when the rhythm goes off-beat. Meaning, it gives you an illusion that the rhythm is NOT on time when it is actually IN time. This where you need to follow something to give you that constant beat. Either you follow the hi-hat of the drums or tap to the bass line or something else that has a constant beat. Try to look for the constant beat hiding somewhere in the tune itself. Takes a while to really notice it but you'll get there with practise or just simply let your body's internal rhythm do the job by taping consistantly without having the off-beats distract you. :D
Style- when you are done listening to lighter jazz tunes and feeling the groove you would wanna know the different styles of jazz. Latin, Bossa Nova, Acid Jazz, Fushion Jazz, Smooth Jazz, etc. which are the few examples that you can go do your research on. By listening to the rhythm and knowing the difference between them, you can distinguish the different styles of jazz that you're listening to. Mind you that there are other ways to tell the difference in style, and rhythm is just one of them. :)
Tone- this is where it really hits me. When you're listening to a particular jazz tune, try picking out a favourite instrument that you like. Every instrument has its own distinctive sound even if it's the same instrument. Tone is the color of sound and the simplest way to understand this is by relating it to your color chart. Let's take the color green for an example. Green is just a general term you use to generalize that color but there are also different shades of green from light to dark green. Same applies to an instrument. A guitar is just a guitar but every guitar has its own unique sound to it just like the different shades of green. When an instrument has really nice tone to it, I'll normally get goose bumps and it's like seeing a shade of green that you really like ALOT! hehhehe :P So, try to listen to a particular intrument tone in DETAIL and soon it'll hit hard you when you find that tone apealing.
Singing - try singing to that particular tune, not aloud but inside you. When you listen to a song, you'll noticed that you're actually singing that song inside you and not aloud. When you listen to jazz, try listening to what the musician is playing in detail, you'll tend to enjoy it without listening to the band as a whole. Like you'll noticed the singer instead of the whole band. Do that by listening to a choice of instrument. Make your choice of instrument to be the singer instead. A good way to start is try listening to a saxophonist in detail. You'll feeling like it's actually singing to you without using words. Like how you would hum to a singer without knowing the lyrics. :)
That's all I can think off at the moment to give you a head start on how you can appreaciate jazz. We listen to music for pleasure like how we listen to pop or rock music. But if listen to it in detail, you'll start to feel how a jazz muscian feels when he's expressing himself on his instruments. It's as though he is just singing to you with loads of passion and expression. That's the beauty of jazz because it's unrehearsed music that is made up mostly by improvising. I'm not a good writer and I hope you can actually understand what I'm saying here. This is what you get for not reading a lot and I have to start the habit for reading. heh! Cheers! :D
