the other night after a dinner party with my core students to celebrate their finishing “American Street Talk, Book 1”, my favorite “disciple” and i went into a newly opened pub here in central TW. nice place. nice crowd.
the band did an “okay on the drums,…and on the bass,” thing, with each member doing a little solo. the kid on the piano did a thing from “legend of 1900” note for fucking note. not only that, it sounded exact-fucking like the movie.
are TWese really superior to those of us of other races? i mean they can learn everything so perfectly. maybe i should just give up. i’ll never play that “good”. he played really “well”. not only that, half of the fucking country can play as “well” as he does. no lie. i’ve never seen a white or black man play as “well” as the locals here do. God bless Kawai or Yamaha or whoever the fuck came up with this learning method.
fellow musicians’ responses wanted first, please.
…TWese have no imagination…
…TWese only play the notes in front of them…
…TWese can’t improvise…
…TWese are a bunch of clones that play the same thing…
…TWese are holding me down with their music-mafia-industry…
Learning to place a piece note for note isn’t the difficult thing. It’s learning how to be a “musician” and improvising and creating your own stuff that is the hard part.
I am not a musicain myself but have had/have friends who are. Their complaints about the mojority of Taiwanese musicains were that they didn’t perform well in jam sessions. Meaning when it came to making stuff up they didn’t do particularly well compared to western musicians. (Generalizing here)
There are plenty of talented musicians in Taiwan, who can improvise and write music with the best of them. Jay Chou is one glowing example. True, most kids in this country learn music through rote memorization of the notes on the page, just like they learn math, Chinese, history, and even English. It’s the culture of the educaiton system, but just like in the West, maybe not as often, a few take the knowledge of how to play their instruments and break out of that rut and make some excellent original music. I would also argue that the environment in Taiwan for learning to be a star in those regular “jam sessions” is not a very condusive one. Students don’t have the opportunity to join a jazz band or rock band at school that allows them to express their creativity (in general at public schools here at least) like students in the US can. Most parents in Taiwan make their kids spend time on their studies rather than going over to their friends’ homes to jam out, not to mention the population density curbing that option too.
This is not a “race” issue as theposter wants to believe. It is merely a cultural aspect of Taiwan. get used to it and applaud so many Taiwanese for taking the itme to learn an instrument that well. I know I wasn’t able to. Though I can play 3 instruments, I certainly can’t play them well enough to perform.
I love that piece. I would love to hear this played.
Don’t underestimate the effort it takes for a student of an instrument to sound like a master. It took me half a lifetime to be able to even imitate the likes of tom harrell, freddie hubbard, and clifford brown. In college and the conservatory studying those who we idolized and respected was a necessary first and second step to becoming a unique musician. I still remember clearly a good friend of mine toiling 12 hours a day transcribing the music of dextor gordon and john coltrane to the point where it was hard to tell whether it was him playing or the recording - and he played trumpet.
I love that piece. I would love to hear this played.
Don’t underestimate the effort it takes for a student of an instrument to sound like a master. It took me half a lifetime to be able to even imitate the likes of tom harrell, freddie hubbard, and clifford brown. In college and the conservatory studying those who we idolized and respected was a necessary first and second step to becoming a unique musician. I still remember clearly a good friend of mine toiling 12 hours a day transcribing the music of dextor gordon and john coltrane to the point where it was hard to tell whether it was him playing or the recording - and he played trumpet.
What you describe is not unique to Taiwan.[/quote]
Amen. Wish I had the patience to do that. But don’t go trying to imitate the bloke in your avatar – nobody wants to scrape you off a sidewalk in Amsterdam.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]You have obviously never heard a Filipino rock band cover Credence Clearwater…
Dr. E…?[/quote]
Proud Mary? lol:
In the old days, you sure didn’t go to an EM club anywhere in Asia and listen to a Taiwanese rock band. They were all Filipino. And for the past 10 years, the best Asian rock (bar none) is Indonesian. Listen to Sheila On 7 or Superman Is Dead. Taiwan rock sucks major ass.
This is not a “race” issue as theposter wants to believe. It is merely a cultural aspect of Taiwan. g.[/quote]
i never said it was a race issue. how do you know what i what to believe? i have always said on this site that it’s a cultural thing.
let’s put it this way: i’ve looked for inspiration in TW music and i can’t find it. no interesting chord progressions, no unique outlook, nothing that strikes me. maybe i’m hard to please. but i’m not a racist.
on the other hand, local musicians who think they have more rights than i do based on nationalism, taike-ism or whatever, ARE.
[quote=“theposter”]the other night after a dinner party with my core students to celebrate their finishing “American Street Talk, Book 1”, my favorite “disciple” and i went into a newly opened pub here in central TW. nice place. nice crowd.
the band did an “okay on the drums,…and on the bass,” thing, with each member doing a little solo. the kid on the piano did a thing from “legend of 1900” note for fucking note. not only that, it sounded exact-fucking like the movie.
are TWese really superior to those of us of other races? i mean they can learn everything so perfectly. maybe i should just give up. i’ll never play that “good”. he played really “well”. not only that, half of the fucking country can play as “well” as he does. no lie. i’ve never seen a white or black man play as “well” as the locals here do. God bless Kawai or Yamaha or whoever the fuck came up with this learning method.
fellow musicians’ responses wanted first, please.[/quote]
The part of your quote that I bolded sounded racist to me
sorry about that. that was tongue in cheek. i said that because Chinese seem to think that. i have heard them say exactly to that effect. i think the fact that they learn so well by route is only feeding their belief in this.
i really don’t think Chinese people think about music the same as westerners do. this is based on much study and observation. music for them is not a mind expanding experience. it is not serious, save for classical musicians.
but it just seems there are too many musicians in taiwan. they can’t all have musical talent. i believe this because i’ve lived in the 4th largest city in the US and i’ve never run into any musicians at the TECHNICAL level of the average taiwanese kid learning piano. in fact, few people that i went to MUSIC CONSERVATORY with play as precise. not only that, the number of people in taiwan claiming to graduate from Berkeley startles me, especially since they exhibit none of the characteristics of musicians that i’ve known (I went to a good school by the way).
you go into the average young(really young, like 19) producer’s house and he has all the best equipment. how? his mom and dad bought it for him. not only that, the TW government is paying producers to go to america to learn. i have this on good authority. the bureau of cultural affairs supported them. america is giving away it’s know how to a bunch of nationalists who wil do everything in their power to make sure that taiwan music stays by the chinese for the chinese.
they just have money and they learn well. they are all hyper on learning. doesn’t mean they are really musicians. it’s just FADISM and route learning ability. that and nationalism (on the part of BCA) pushing them. MHO.
that and of course ICRT’s condescending view of taiwan pop,ie " here is a seminal, groundbreaking artist". bullshit. i try not to say mando-pop and music in the same breath. anybody who does so is being condescending IMO. there is NO COMPARISON between the contributions of western artists and the ATTEMPTS(at present, maybe that will change) of taiwan music wanna-bes. to say there is is both “condescending foreignerism” and a belittlement to western music.
MTC. maybe i look like a snob. but they drew first blood. THEY ARE THE SNOBS.
a little venting here. sorry for the tone. not all the TW bands suck.
