I was listening to an interview with drummer Steve Gadd. It struck me that to know about music involves multiple cognitive, emotional, and kinetic factors. The entire body and mind are involved.
The little I know about jazz drumming, is probably very little in comparison to what I know in general, but it is is fairly intricate knowledge (as far as it goes; I am not a great drummer), about the kind of cymbal sound that might be preferred, the size of the bass drum, implication of drum tunings, particular rhythmic patterns, like displaced quarter note triplets. Subtlety of the ride cymbal pattern. A little bit about the history and evolution of playing drums, the interaction between drums and bass and piano. I've spent years of active listening, not just having music on in the background.
Yet when I was hearing a podcast or video with some musicians taking apart a Ray Charles album, I was amazed by the level of insight they had. (The great bassist Christian McBride was part of this conversation). I never realized that Roy Haynes was on this album, playing "I got news for you," etc... Obviously the level of insight here was higher than mine by several degrees of magnitude.
It's not humility to say this, it's simply a recognition of reality. There is a granular knowledge there that I can learn from, even without sharing it.
And I have that kind of knowledge in my own field, as well. And the things I know about music are part of the total package of what I know, as a scholar of word and music.
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