🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (34 tweets)
Reminder to tomorrow-Visa to make a thread about how this video changed my life (approach to mistakes and failure, and the expectations and feelings around them) https://t.co/yHoNg9I3K2
this is true regardless of how you choose to define success; whether we're talking abt climbing the corporate ladder or being an artist. I'm reminded of Vic Wooten talking about how he deliberately practices wrong notes (worth watching even if non-musical) https://t.co/5cywxUyepm
OK so some context – Vic Wooten is a *phenomenal* bass player, considered by many to be the best in the world. He was raised by a musical family, and has a "music is a language, you should learn via osmosis" type of philosophy that I personally find very profound and affirming
The chromatic scale is when you literally play every single note on the piano or guitar. It's like reciting the numbers or the alphabet. People typically use it for mindless finger practice. Wooten argues that we should LISTEN to the music in these boring, mechanical sounds https://t.co/WyD4Nzx53v
Now here he is demonstrating what it's like to play the chromatic scale, *musically*, over music. Just witnessing this blew my mind. It's like someone reciting the alphabet in a moving, poetic way. Harder than that, since some notes are "wrong". Wooten doesn't believe in "wrong" https://t.co/gxAoUEgbYW
"When there's a note that doesn't work, there's a note on either side of the note that DOES work." NOBODY TELLS YOU THIS. "It's always easy! but we make it hard!". "A minute ago this note didn't work, but now it does. I can *erase* the wrong note by *making music*." Amazing https://t.co/mlhCU45PDU
It gets wilder. An audience member requests "can you play ONLY the wrong notes?" HE DOES IT, THE MADMAN Victor Wooten does not accept your rules about what is right and wrong in music. His ear is so refined, his feeling so deft, that he can make music that's "wrong" yet musical https://t.co/UTZm3upMai
If you didn't already think "this man is a sorcerer", he then goes on to perfectly role-play a sloppy show-off amateur musician! "It's the feel that makes the note work. Get the feel right and you can play anything." This man's galaxy-brain relationship with music *awes* me https://t.co/kgDOKvYAO9
If you're wondering, this is how he sounds when he isn't deliberately playing wrong notes. and using a loop pedal to play multiple different parts at once. his brain-to-fingers-to-instrument pathway is so strong and clear, he's basically just fooling around having fun w/o thought https://t.co/2nkI4nONIK
the thing thing I love about him so much is not just his genius, but his nurturing, encouraging approach to teaching. he isn't trying to impress you with how good he is (he knows how good he is, and he knows you know too). he just loves music and wants to help you love it too
turns out he was holding back in that last vid https://t.co/8SDRzrle15
if by now you're guessing he'd also have some meaningful, interesting and wholesome things to say about *learning itself*, you'd be absolutely correct https://t.co/V0PYfDQKPi
@selfprime @webdevMason Btw Mason I think you’d enjoy this - Victor Wooten, musical genius and incredible teacher + communicator, on a healthy, “natural language” approach to learning. So wholesome and encouraging, “learn-via-osmosis” school of thought https://t.co/w39HOW2A7C
@visakanv I've been digging his book (in audiobook form) where he lays all of this stuff out. Here's a thread where I gave some initial thoughts: https://t.co/mDiK4nZjQ5
all mistakes are contextual, and context is something that you can change finite players play within boundaries, infinite players play *with* boundaries https://t.co/XrYlTx06Rg
@visakanv Herbie Hancock describing a similar realization he had early on playing with Miles Davis, and "right in the middle of Miles Davis' solo, I played the wrong chord. Sounded like a big mistake! ...and Miles paused for a second... then he played some notes that made my chord right." https://t.co/NsDiTfdH5g
learn to be ok with being wrong https://t.co/lst1urV6Cx
ugh he's so good in so many ways, what a genius, what a natural, what a teacher. "we teach you pitch when we should be teaching you context", oh my god https://t.co/pH2hKo2ynG
I truly can't with this man. Galaxy brain shit. Musical magician 🤯 https://t.co/Mtufs9qcKc
Miles Davis saying the same thing https://t.co/2kEIA8Lm51
“you can make every note work with every chord [...] rather than say this note is good or bad, it’s more, this note hasn’t found it’s consequence yet, or this note is in the wrong context [...] if it feels right, then it's probably fine." – @jacobcollier https://t.co/7ePxG3sv8E
you see how this applies not just to music, but to almost all mistakes, all "failures". you just need to find a resolution, you just need to adapt the context. if you make music with the wrong notes, they're not wrong anymore https://t.co/3TIzPyPP1k
become a connoisseur of your own mistakes https://t.co/Carh8Bl6Qa
deliberate use of dissonant or "wrong" notes to achieve a desired effect https://t.co/X5h4dIYqLU
nice thread digging into the specifics of what wooten is doing https://t.co/pgMQ12OmPa
delicious use of a “wrong” note, by @evntyd https://t.co/qsk7ZeeJtz
“Anytime I hit, it is correct.” - Dizzy Gillespie https://t.co/JxjrIbLz0g
you can erase the ‘wrong’ notes by making music https://t.co/o5UEQ0ooXD
@visakanv @jacobcollier https://t.co/FHBrZ7fcjZ
@visakanv > "someone reciting the alphabet in a moving, poetic way" https://t.co/IO7K71TuMs
@visakanv Herbie Hancock describing a similar realization he had early on playing with Miles Davis, and "right in the middle of Miles Davis' solo, I played the wrong chord. Sounded like a big mistake! ...and Miles paused for a second... then he played some notes that made my chord right." https://t.co/NsDiTfdH5g
@Malcolm_Ocean @visakanv this is my utopian belief: I think there's a way of listening, receptivity, creativity that can make everything fit together beautifully in my more cosmic esoteric moments I wonder if a sufficiently potent individual could play this role for all humanity, instantaneously
@visakanv This thread needs, as its comic version, to be directed to this thread, where people are finding the natural musicality of people talking and then adding instrumentation. https://t.co/Dmyr8hsgkO