Exactly. My students ask me if I think about all the stuff we talk about in
theory class while I'm performing. I say of course not!. I pause while the
shock settles in and then tell them I think about it in the practice room
so I don't have to on the job.
My sports analogies are all about the improvisation involved in baseball
and how they prepare for different situations by drilling the simpliest
fundamentals over and over so that when something happens in a game, they
don't have to think, they just react. Try to put all the mechanics of
hitting together and face a 90 mph fastball. You can't think that fast; you
have to have done your homework and react. Now try to play Cherokee or
rhythm changes at 300+: you can't think that fast; you have to have done
your homework and react.
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Bert Ligon
Director of Jazz Studies
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School of Music
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Voice: (803) 777-6565
Fax: (803) 777-2151
bligon@mozart.sc.edu
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