Improvisation Can Be Taught - Jazz Piano Legend Mulgrew Miller
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- Опубліковано 3 лют 2010
- Get Mulgrew Miller Live at the Kennedy Center
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Pianist extraordinaire Mulgrew Miller discusses the fine art of Jazz improvisation. Mulgrew Miller (born August 13, 1955 in Greenwood, Mississippi) is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
In a childhood filled with early musical experiences, mostly playing gospel music in his church and R&B and blues at dances. Miller was interested in jazz piano, and established a trio in high school that would play at cocktail parties. Miller admits that they did not really know what they were doing and were merely "approaching jazz". Miller is said to have set his mind definitely to becoming a jazz pianist after seeing Oscar Peterson on television. Much of Miller's playing has the same technical prowess so often connected with Peterson. Currently, he maintains a working trio with Ivan Taylor on bass, and Rodney Green on drums. He has released four albums to date with Derrick Hodge (bass) and Karriem Riggins (drums) (both on the label MAXJAZZ): Live At Yoshi's Vol. 1 (2004), Live At Yoshi's Vol. 2 (2005), Live At The Kennedy Center Vol. 1 (2006), and Live At The Kennedy Center Vol. 2 (2007).
On May 20, 2006, Miller was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Performing Arts at Lafayette College's 171st Commencement Exercises.
Miller currently resides in Easton, Pennsylvania. As of 2006 he is the Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University. He was the Artist in Residence at Lafayette College for 2008-2009
For more Mulgrew, please visit:
www.mulgrewmiller.com
So many people (non-musicians) love to push the idea of skill being a "gift' and all that magical thinking bullshit. Sure, some people have more aptitude than others, but, as the old musicians used to say, "The more I practice and study ......the more 'talented' I get!"
Great skills are learned and developed.
True what he says about teaching. We make students aware of the areas they need to pay attention to. Phrasing, groove (time and feeling) theoretical issues, etc. It's funny b/c I find myself using basic layman's terms in dealing with people who want to learn. You want them to learn fast but it doesn't always work that way. This video is encouraging in many ways!
He taught me in College!! Brilliant Man!!
Anything with Mulgrew Miller is worth watching. One thing I'm hoping to come across is a series of interviews where jazz musicians discuss how *they* learned to improvise. If there isn't anything like that out there, someone would do well to take on a project like that, both for the historical and for the instructional value. Instead of the bits a pieces that are available now, imagine if we had the very words of Charlie Parker or Wes Montgomery, describing how they spent their time in the shed . . . that stuff would be priceless.
Great conversation. The interviewer showed a fearlessness about his lack of knowledge and because of this opens a can of worms for thousands of people. Thats how its done.
Very insightful and intelligent discourse.
Mulgrew also knew he was the authentic and *ORIGINAL JEW.*
*FACT*
Well alright!
What a delightful and interesting man, Ive only discovered him after reading his obituary which made me curious to know about him. RIP
I know I started too late, and I think I may have “given up” too soon. If only I had been open enough to discover these words way back when. Thank you Mr. Miller...
RIP Mulgrew Miller! This is a great interview and Miller does a great job of explaining jazz improvisation!
R.I.P Mulgrew Miller.
RIP Mulgrew. An articulate, gentle giant. Missed already.
Thank you so much for this. I play classical piano, and I've always felt very inferior to my friends who play only jazz, and not classical, when I'm in jazz bands with them. I can barely improvise, and I find it very hard to remain confident throughout a solo...but I think this video gave me some hope.
A great musician and teacher who has passed away too soon. RIP Mulgrew, I will keep on listening.
thank you Mulgrew Miller
I love jazz, but some times I feel we humans need to remember the beauty in birdsong that is achieved without study.
What Miller says is like what Miles Davis said about starting out playing, you play a lot of cliches that you copy from other musicians. After a while you start to learn more of the theory behind it and more vocabulary and it gives you the ability to create your own thing instead of just repeating licks and phrases that you copied from someone else. That's like what Miller says about learning to speak through imitation then later learning grammar.
Thanks for your comment.
A very good teacher. Very interesting points.
@rololoo He's a very good teacher, Mr. Miller.
@azexperiment Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm so glad you're able to use this. Stay tuned.
Pure wisdom.
I think so too
Muy interesante el enfoque de Mulgrew Miller!!!
Y buen profesor!!
Awesome talent!
Thank you so much JazzVideoGuy !! Just wonderful !!
true true true! "you must listen to the music!"
Incredible!
Teachers and school are good for ever. But a good first learning from hear it's a flash learning you stay around that sound until you re produce, you find skills and get confidence , imitation is a thing that reproduce in a more relaxed way with the time. Flash learning in some people are very dominant when they have it in the nervio , some can't coordinate it with mind teaching because it's a immense time as they feel it, to write read and play a note , and again the second one a and so on. But mind teaching open more doors like crazy.
Well said, Mr. Pena.
@Bratschenator Muchas gracias Pancho. The music has certainly changed my life.
I have seen scores of your videos but this one was so very important to see. I had to finally comment and say thank you.
THANK YOU for this!
Very Much enjoyed that, and thx Mulgrew (& Brett)
Straight forward no BS from the master.
Ok,I born with it. What a pity,that I was late about 20-30 years,and missed the place too,just with a couple of hundred miles... :)
RIP mighty Mulgrew
Fantastic video; thanks for posting this.
yes you haev to play your instrument. I learned to improvise to some degree making connections mentally with Music theory then applying different licks in different contexts and transcribing them to different key and slowly I learned, but it was self taught
putting my nose to the grindstone. I started a trio here in S Florida
Good Words! Thanks man,
He passed on! RIP!!
Thank You @ благодарю !
WHILE IN MSU, I WANTED TO MAJOR IN MUSIC AND PIANO . BUT SINCE MY PASSION WAS IN ELECTRONICS, I STILL
KEEP MY MIND ON MUSIC AND PIANO. THEN, I MET MULGREW MILLER
MULGREW MILLER MET AT MEMPHIS STATE UNIVERSITY IN THE 1970'S
I WAS PURSUING A BACHELOR DEGREE IN ELECTRONIC ENGINEER
MULGREW MILLER TAUGHT ME MY 1ST PIANO LESSON "YOU ARE THE SUNSHINE OF MY LIFE".
WE WERE IN A PRACTICE PIANO ROOM. AT MEMPHIS STATE UNIVERSITY
AND MULGREW MILLER INVITED ME IN..
SO I STARTED COMING BY THE PRACTICE PIANO ROOM ON A REGULAR BASIS
I BOUGHT A STEVIE COMPOSITION "YOU ARE THE SUNSHINE OF MY LIFE".
I PUT THE MUSIC BEFORE HIM AND
WOW! HE PLAYED LIKE HE OWNED IT
I DIDN'T KNOW HOW MULGREW MILLER WOULD BECOME A GREAT JAZZ ARTIST
I WAS IN FORT WORTH AT A JAZZ CLUB AND MET BETTY CARTER
MULGREW MILLER PLAYED JAZZ FOR BETTY CARTER.
Kwame Ajanaku [stop]
From time to time I help people learn this or that.. but I call myself a facilitator .. I try to make it easier for them.. of course .. every body has different styles.. I did not know that Mr Garner did not know how to read music..
Thats pretty humbling. Sorry for the late reply btw
thanks man
awsome
I wish this section was longer...
nice analogy of learning to speak
Just heard RIP!
3:37 "In, in, in most cases...uhh...umm jazz pianist are trash..." hahahah! it's not really what he means to say or even says, but i got a huge laugh out of it.
Matt Morgan lmaooo
Sounds like he mixed up "trained" and "classically" and it came out "trass..."
JVG rocks! Brett more of these instructional type interviews please! Great stuff. I owe you some token dough$ for your great work bro ! There should be a paypal button donate link on these videos! Thanks for doing this.
@JazzVideoGuy Thanks so much for the reply, that's good news :)
Best
Rip mr miller.
"Classical" music died,when the ententainer,and the composer had been separated,improvisation ignored. Now something simular happening to jazz,and that is sad. Cause jazz (blues) was there,when classical lost it's roots - but what is here,now,to renew music again??? (As it was renewing constantly almost year by year during the 20th century...till about the mid '80s...)
@bobbygoesbig It was a mild stroke. He's doing better.
yeah i got that too. maybe he was going to say "trash compared to classical players" but i would NOT agree with him as far as that goes. cant believe he stumbled on his own words for being such an excellent speaker
You can't learn THIS MUSIC in a class room. "Mulgrew Miller "
@Bratschenator meant to give you thumbs up sorry...
As of 4pm EST, his nurse in the ICU, he is still alive....
Chuck Norris approves of improvization:)
Brett, I heard Mulgrew had a stroke recently. Is he doing ok?
i thought he actually in this video lol
he looks like the guy from monster inc
Seconded.
He had a stroke around that time.
whats that supposed to mean?
reload this video
It is self taught, with the help of the masters. It cannot be taught. Well, someone can teach you to fake.
:((( Goodbye.
Man, Woody Allen doesn't know much about music. He's asking some pretty dumb questions
aku
Guy looks too old for his years...
You either have it or not .......
Mario Monaco false
Mario Monaco, no! “Listen” to more of what the jazz greats say. Do that, really.
yes, and it's called "dedication"
Not to knock Mr. Miller who is a great pianist and probably a great teacher too, but his description of how we learn (ordinary) language is not correct. We don't learn to speak by imitating other people. We don't really 'learn' to speak; we acquire the complex stuff without anyone teaching it to us. His description of how we learn language is a great description of how we learn to play jazz, but being able to play jazz is not a basic human faculty in the same the way that ordinary language is.