Don't think - it's harder done than said

The key to listening is to pay attention to what "kind" of listening you are doing. I find that I hear things differently when I am focusing on the music - just sitting and listening - as opposed to what I hear when I play background music while I'm eating or painting the garage, but also as opposed to what I hear when I'm sitting at the piano listening to something I'm trying to play. I see sort of intuitively why this might be, but I don't really understand it. The music isn't changing, and neither is my brain, per se. I think it comes down to what you are listening for.

When I sit and listen to music (which is a relatively rare occurrence), I generally don't listen for anything specific, but I do hope - and therefore I guess I listen - to hear something I never heard before. A subtle nuance in a certain note, or maybe a click of the bass string during a solo that adds a rhythmic touch. You never know what to expect with a new recording or a recording you haven't actually sat and listened to, so it is impossible to quantify beforehand, but I think there is something to it.

When music is just in the background, you hear something, but you don't really acknowledge what. So ultimately, only something that grabs your attention actually makes it to the foreground of your brain to be recognized and "heard" heard. In a sense, it isn't really listening at all, but nonetheless, I've had profound moments of constructive hearing while engaged in some mundane task, such as when I rediscovered Eric Dolphy while, that's right, painting the garage.

The ultimate listening for me, however, is when I'm learning a tune. If I'm seated at the piano and playing a CD over and over again, after a while, the way I hear the music, and what I actually hear, changes. Some parts of the song don't even exist when I'm listening that way. I may be interested in a rhythmic pattern or discovering a fill, or something along those lines, but then it becomes necessary to ignore parts of the song to hear certain other parts. That sort of listening I have done, but not yet mastered. Fortunately, I've found a parallel but unrelated skill that helps.

Sometime back I read about a relaxation exercise that involves stopping thinking. The human brain has a continual and unending stream of thoughts, generally not even interrupted for sleep, as far as scientists can determine. The exercise involves training your mind to not think of anything. It sounds easy but is deceptively difficult. In fact, it is damn near impossible. I have been practicing this exercise now for about two years. I can successfully stop all thoughts for what I estimate to be ten seconds or so. (I can't time it, because then I would have to think about that, and that would ruin the exercise.) Again, you have to NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING. Not your breathing, not about how dark it is behind your eyelids, not about the heartbeat you hear in your ears, or ANYTHING ELSE. Like I said, this is extremely and deceptively difficult. But, when I do this before listening to music, I do hear differently.

I don't know what any of this means. Just thought I would share it with late-to-jazz readers. Maybe someday I'll have some further perspective and better observation to share on this.

Experiment Analysis: Part 2

I should have done further analysis before I wrote my initial results.

It turns out that I actually MISSED Little Madimba. I guess I overthought the experiment and figured Eldar had to throw in at least one Latin flavored song, or whatever, and never having heard the song before, I suppose I figured it was some esoteric stuff that Eldar dug up for his album. So much for that hypothesis. However, in my defense, I'd never heard African Village before either, and I pegged that as a Tyner song right away, so I don't think I was completely off base in my initial analysis.

Here's the playlist and what I hit and missed. I think I'm going to leave the analysis at that.

The conclusion is simply: Eldar and McCoy Tyner can be very hard to tell apart for the beginning jazz pianist or casual listener, so Mrs. S's comments about Tyner sounding like Eldar were not as far off the mark as I at first thought. And with that, the experiment is completed.

Soon, we start work on the Yoity Tot CD list. Stay tuned.

Experiment Analysis: Part 1

Well, we conducted the Tyner vs. Eldar experiment over the weekend. The two subject CD's were Time for Tyner and Eldar's self-titled CD, Eldar (yeah, no kidding). The experiment even had some controls. Mrs. S did a really good job of mixing up all seventeen tunes from the CD's, and the artists themselves had basically standards with a few songs that I was completely unfamiliar with, as well as some made up of pieces of other songs, so there was no possibility for me to judge the artists based on the tracks themselves. Both CD's were studio CD's and for the most part, the accompanists and pianos sounded similar enough that I could not tell the artists apart based just on sound. I have to say, these two CD's match up very well stylistically, technically, and artistically, and it made telling the artists apart solely on their piano chops very challenging.

Before I present the results, here's my analysis.

Tyner's work in Latin and African rhythms and songs stands out. I just couldn't picture Eldar playing Little Madimba, African Village, or Afro Blue (which wasn't on the experiment CD) or something like that. So when I heard something Latin-sounding, I could assume it to not be Eldar. Similarly, when Eldar does that keyboard mashing glissando up or down, there is no mistaking it, and I just couldn't picture Tyner doing something like that. Eldar also makes with the lightning-fingers riffs that, while I'm sure Tyner could do if he wanted, he doesn't, simply because that's not his style. So again, I had no trouble identifying any songs containing those kinds of things as Eldar songs.

Where I got into trouble was when they were playing classic standards at normal tempo with what one could call standard arrangements. There just isn't enough individual style there, at least, not when you just listen to the song for a minute or two. So I need to point out, had I spent, say two or three minutes per song, I think the results would have been different. Yesterday morning and afternoon, I listened to the Eldar CD and in some of the solo work, I heard things I didn't hear when we did the experiment. I think I probably made my decision too early on at least two, and probably three of the songs. (I will do a song by song breakdown and what I heard or didn't hear or thought I heard at a later date, after I've had a chance to listen to each CD .)

Finally, the results were: out of seventeen songs, I correctly identified the artist in eleven of them, 65%. I think that is close to being statistically significant, but probably is not. More interesting is that I was unable to identify the artist in four of the first five songs I listened to. Maybe if I had gone back and listened to the songs again after doing a once-through on them, I might have changed my mind or been able to listen more capably. Hard to say if that would have been the case or not. I think it is accurate to say that, in truth, I cannot tell the difference between Tyner and Eldar just by listening, unless they do something that is one of their trademarks or play a song that the other just never would do.

My final comment here, for now, is this started as a comparison of block chords and based on what I heard yesterday, there wasn't all that much block chord work on either one of the CD's. (Maybe block chords would have made telling them apart even more difficult. The ramifications are endless.)

Next post: a song by song, post-listening analysis.

Experiment controls

Just about two months ago, I wrote about how I had been listening to McCoy Tyner's Afro-Blue and Mrs. S, over a period of a couple of days, kept coming in the middle of it, going "Is that Eldar?" and how I considered the two different enough, even though they are both block chord specialists (of a sort), that I could tell them apart just by listening. But, I further commented, I was usually the one who picked the music and I was familiar enough with Eldar's Blue Note album and some of Tyner's other stuff that maybe I was telling them apart by subconscious clues. I devised an experiment where I would buy one CD each of Eldar and McCoy Tyner that I didn't have and wasn't familiar with, and I wouldn't look at the song list, and Mrs. S would load them in iMusic and randomize a selection of their songs and I would attempt to identify the pianist.

Here are the controls for the experiment:
1) Like I said, I haven't looked at the CD's and don't know what songs are on them. I can somewhat suspect the Tyner plays more standards and Eldar plays "free" stuff, so I will ask Mrs. S to try and mix in mostly just standards, but not knowing what's on the CD's, I'm not sure this is even possible.
2) When the Eldar self titled CD arrived from amazon, I didn't even open the packaging. I just gave it to Mrs. S. When Time for Tyner arrived, same thing, though I happened to see the Eldar CD sitting on the computer keyboard stand. So, I just piled it on top, again, not looking at either one.
3) In preparation, I have been listening to nothing but jazz pianists for the past week. Yesterday, my CD's finally arrived from yourmusic.com (what a story that was) and in addition to the Tyner, there was Jarrett Peacock DeJohnette's Live at Montreaux, which is what I've been listening to this morning. This past week has been a steady diet of Oscar Peterson and Thelonious Monk, but no Tyner or Eldar.
4) When conducting the experiment, I will arrange the room so that I can't see the computer screen or even a reflection of it. Basically, I'm going to sit with my back to the screen (so I can hear all the speakers, sub woofers, etc.) and, I'm guessing, have Mrs. S play ten songs (or more) for a minute or two each, listing them in order, and I will write down who I think is playing each one. She will not tell me if my guess is right or wrong until after I have listened to and guessed at all of the songs so that I don't use any feedback to tell who is playing.

Obviously, if the sounds and songs of the CD's are vastly different, like if one is live and the other isn't, the experiment will not be a success anyway. Same goes if the tonality of the instruments used is very pronounced or unique: I may not know who is playing, but I will know which piano it is and be able to match it up with previously heard songs and my pianist guess.

I suppose someone with a lot more experience than me couldn't even perform this kind of experiment, which is why I think this is such a great opportunity. Some time from now, who knows when, one hopes that my jazz knowledge and experience would be sufficient that I could guess virtually any pianist after hearing just a few bars. Then again, I'm not sure THAT is even possible in the first place.

The experiment is going to be this weekend. Stop back soon to find out how it went.