Well, today was my second movement class, so let's talk a little bit about it (I promise to be less pretentious).
First though, do you ever have the experience of feeling like you remember the quality of a piece of music or say an album that maybe you listened to at a time in your life, and something inspires you to revisit it and you're like "whoa this is different than I remembered". In large part due to the music Yo-el plays during the class, and also maybe because I've been getting back into playing bass guitar, I went and listened to some of Jaco Pastorious' self titled debut album. If you're a fan of jazz, or just a lover of music, definitely do yourself a favor and listen to that record. If you've never heard Jaco's playing before, maybe check out this track. Portrait of Tracy, which I just linked to, was particularly revelatory. I remembered the haunting melody and the stark quality of Jaco's solo fretless electric bass (yes as far as I know that's one bass track, specifically an American Fender jazz that he took the frets off of to get the sounds he got) but man, those harmonies. Especially the motif he plays at about 55 seconds, with the bass line modulating underneath it in these incredibly modern and expressionistic directions, it just blew my mind a little bit.
You know, I think it's bullshit when guitar players get down on the bass. And it's not really something I've encountered since I was in high school, and everybody in high school is prone to jumping to conclusions just for the sake of having an opinion, or is capable of great ignorance, I certainly was, but it's a really beautiful instrument. Rediscovering it has been very inspiring for me, musically, and the vast number of techniques and approaches and sheer sounds you can get especially from the Fender Jazz (which is a specific model, kind of like the Stratocaster of electric basses). Similar to the Stratocaster, something about the electronics on that instrument really opens up a variety of sounds, to say nothing of the unlimited number of techniques emanating from your finger tips which can lead to different kinds of sounds. You can make a melody sound so many different ways, if you have a well made and well intonated instrument, just plugging straight into an amp, it's very beautiful. I think that even keeping the fundamental quality of the melody the same, which is to say having the same dynamic, melodic and rhythmic values, there might even be more variety in a bass straight to an amplification source than with a guitar. I don't know if that's really true, it all depends on the talent and ability of the musician. But yeah, it's a great instrument, and I've been having a lot of fun rediscovering it even if the tips of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger hurt like hell from all that plucking.
Oh so yeah, movement class. It's a requirement for the apprentice kids to journal about the class, although I don't imagine Yo-el is big on collecting assignments and I haven't gotten the sense that he's expecting me to do so, but this blog is all about my journey so let's chronicle it, yeah? Today was my first section, and the emphasis was on Laban technique in the form of a sequence of warm ups that Yo-el has been instructing the class in step by step. Again, I spent the first half of the class catching up and then he instructed the class in the more movement intense aspects of the warm up as opposed to the floor based initial section. This kind of technical work is what I was really looking for in a movement class, and what I feel had been missing from my training up to this point, so I'm again excited to start learning it and see how it informs the more creative and expressive aspects of our work together. Not much else to report today, check back tomorrow for an update on my first extended Saturday morning class session.
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