Paul Hirsh
jazz panpipe pioneer and designerRecent Comments
Category Archives: Musicianship
You get back what you put in
One of the dangers of transcribing music, often encountered by ethnomusicologists, is that of forgetting that what you write down and the music itself are two different things. Or as I keep saying, the map is not the territory. I … Continue reading
Playing what you hear vs. the instrument playing YOU
If we break down our focus of “playing like singing in the shower” into its component parts, using our hard-earned Intervallic Awareness to help us find the notes, we would end up with some scheme such as: Imagine a melody … Continue reading
Posted in Musicianship
Tagged improvising, inner melody, jazz improv, Jean-Michel Pilc, Lee Konitz
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Musical theorems: a bluffer’s guide
The idea of musical theorems is all about drawing simple conclusions from your basic knowledge about notes, and putting them to use in your playing. An example. You know every major scale contains three notes from one wholetone scale and … Continue reading
The least practiced interval and why you should practice it
If I were to ask you the commonest melodic interval in today’s commercial music what would you guess? Well, with just listening to the radio for 10 minutes, I declare the clear winner to be: nothing. Or in MOVES notation: =0. The word “unison” is the … Continue reading
How to be talented
What musical talent isn’t Musical talent used to be a mystery, and to many still is. Some people even want to believe that it is God-given. Not a very empowering view, unless you think prayer will change your lot. And … Continue reading
Making it intentional
If there is one constant theme in everything I try to do in music, it is the idea of intentionality. I once read both John Cage’s books in praise of chance operations and ambient sounds, and found them highly entertaining, … Continue reading
Posted in Musicianship
Tagged improvising, Intentional improvising, John Cage, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker
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Charting the Emotions
Once upon a time, inspired by Alain Daniélou’s Ragas of North Indian Classical Music, I mapped just-tuned frequencies into an infinite web that I call the Honeycomb. You can explore it in my interactive Atlas of Tonespace, by clicking on the notes … Continue reading
Let’s Build a Wall!
In my young day they didn’t have jazz courses. You had to blunder about picking up tips, trying stuff out and bluffing where necessary. So when I play with the young players here in France what sticks out to my … Continue reading
Intervallic Awareness for Improvisers 