great "non-musician" bandleaders: how does this work?

(i imagine the set-up is not the same for all four)

(i am probably least interested in eno, whose process i find it easiest to imagine, since he discusses it a lot)

(i probably do actually know some of the anser but i want to know what other ppl think or dream or have reliably discovered)

but in a more general sense, isn't pop music overflowing with musicians who don't read or write music? isn't that maybe even the norm?

xpost

but the "writers" are in the jam-and-discuss case all intimately involved in the play, so they can toss ideas around and make things happen by playing

what happens when the leader is set apart from this process? esp. in ref really quite intricate music?

i know that CB has said he taught everyone their troutmask parts individually BUT they have all said NO HE DID NOT

fair point re eno

haha i had forgot MES, possibly the most mysterious of all!! he can't even SING in tune!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

LEARN ONE BLUES/AMERICAN MUSIC FFS!!!

let us assume i am a simpleton

we're talkin about GROUNDBREAKING MUSIC so you can't just play em a record and say "like that plz" --- the record doesn't exist yet, you are inventing it

if CB played blues harp like say stevie wonder then i'd know what you meant, but he doesn't—yes of course the parts SOMETIMES merge into one another, other times they totally don't

do JB and GC play piano pretty well—except never on stage—and it all starts from there (boring answer if so)?

also: exclude eno and mes, i think that's a difft ballgame

I mean, didn't the Beatles just hum the string parts, etc., to George Martin, who then wrote them down and arranged/orchestrated/whatevered them? Yet few would argue that John & Paul were not musicians or bandleaders.

I have no musical training, don't read or write music, and have no ear, but when I write something on the guitar I can pretty easily say to the keyboardist, "I want you to do something noodly and descending, based around these notes: [doop dee doop dee doop]." "[drummer], let's try this with an eighth-note feel; keep the high-hat mostly closed, except on the three," that sort of thing. Yet they are still in the largest sense "my" songs.

"Actually the Captain spent large amounts of time teaching the band each little part of TMR" YES BUT HOW? is he actually a secret brilliant guitarist or did he use telepathy?

also the magic band in fact subsequently have said "no he didn't", and that they deserve more credit etc etc (who's lying?)

Beefheart and James Brown seem to have worked through discipline and intimidation, running their band sort of like an army. It doesn't make much sense to call Eno a bandleader though. He certainly wasn't the leader of Roxy Music and he hardly seems to take a dominant "leader" type of role in his production work.

This is a common misconception...just becuase someone has the writing credit on the song doesn't necessarily mean they dictated/thought of every sonic idea you hear on the track. Usually, it's quite the opposite.

The "songwriter" will show up with chords, melody, words: the song. He'll play it on guitar or keys. Then everyone else there builds on that. But this second process is no longer technically considered "writing." I don't think that's actually fair, but that's how it works.

This is why a lot of people in bands (the Band for one) hate each other now--one person got the songwriting credit (i.e. got more $$), but the rest contributed to the sound of the song, but didn't get songwriting credit.

mad puffin IF you play the guitar then it's easy to see how you can teach other ppl parts, it's a good instrument for doing that

son me on clinton someone

He used a piano.

gee thanks i feel i know a lot more now

Of course, he obviously did have a lot of control over what his musicians played and was very specific about it (emphasis on the 1, not playing fills, the syncopation, etc.).

gee thanks i feel i know a lot more now

What's so hard to understand about that? As other people are pointing out just because James Brown's name is on the songwriting credit doesn't mean he had 100% control over composing every little bit. He ran his band as such a tight ship and made sure to always have the best players around because in doing so he knew that they would come up with riffs, melodies, etc. on their own that would enhance his songs and make him look better. This is pretty much the same way that people like Duke Ellington and Miles Davis worked as well. They didn't necessarily come up with all of the melodies and motifs that they are known for.

The whole point is that it's not about virtuosity. On drums for example Beefheart would just pound out a rough idea and then rely on John French (or whatever drummer was present) to catch the drift of what he wanted and play it 100X better.

Duke Ellington = not so much, I think. He (and Strayhorn) wrote parts FOR his specific plays that he knew they would make sound good, but they didn't write their own parts, except for the rhythm section.

hm, guitarist gary lucas still insists/agrees that beefheart - "humming & whistling" - taught him the solo guitar werk evening bell over the course of, like, a month-plus. until he, lucas, finally mastered the thing to beefheart's 'content'...

no idea of how clinton or james b tackle similar task, tho. but beefheart's mode of operating, although sometimes *probably* muthologised/exaggarated, seem to've incorporated besides hummin' & whistlin' & rhtyhm-bangin' also some rudimentary piano and "suchlike"

I may be confusing Ellington with stories I read about Sun Ra and Fletcher Henderson. Anyway, I thought that was pretty much a standard in the big band era. A soloist would improvise a catchy little line one night and the next day that riff would show up as the melody of a new tune that the bandleader had written. And in fact weren't some of the songs that Strayhorn wrote actuallly credited to Ellington?

the groups are collective and improvisatory—excellent musicians obv, though not necessarily flamboyantly creative on their own: they're under the fierce aggressive spell of the "non-playing"* leader—who takes a lot of time and depoys a lot of intimidatory tactics to push them out of pre-established grooves into something that didn't previously exist

*yes yes i know but either we make a distinction or we don't: ellington and miles were both player-leaders; the ellington orc worked as much from writing as not—strayhorn wz ell's second brane

-- The Mad Puffin (pfnwrit...), March 10th, 2005.

I agree with you all the way up the last sentence.

By the way, Brian Eno doesn't play an instrument? WTF?

I've always sort of wondered about Cinematic Orchestra actually. From what I understand, it's one dj/bandleader type guy surrounding himself with a bunch of great musicians. Does he play anything? Who writes the tunes?

in a way i think what i'm interested is where does the spell actually come from to start with?

cf "julia lennon theory"/is the audience band of the band etc etc

Oh yeah, I didn't mean that as a criticism at all. It's just a natural process. Maybe occasionally a musician would resent having their ideas stolen by the guy with the big name but this kind of stuff happens in EVERY creative field that involves collaboration. I don't think any less of Beefheart as an artist because he didn't actually compose every little snippet of Trout Mask.

Dr. Dre has his "stable", keyboard players and musicians who he pays to come in every day and make up riffs and brainstorm shit. He gets to pick and choose from their musical ideas and build tracks around them.

Also, I know of an instance or two where well-known DJ's have tried to collaborate with musicians (names withheld to protect the innocent) and it resulted in meltdown because the musicians refused to communiate in the dj's non-musical (or at least non-specific) language.

where does the gradient of trust and leadership develop against the natural ("natural") hierarchy of chops and skill?

i forgot JB wz a drummer to begin with, so this does not help cause in ref. arguing that i am not merely an idiot for askin such questions

in fact i think the principle is probably pretty similar exacpt that he generates more songs straight from old records (as in "groove like this plz") (i think that i read this once) (maybe i made it up)

What exactly do you mean? I think I know what you're asking but I'm not quite sure.

where does the gradient of trust and leadership develop against the natural ("natural") hierarchy of chops and skill? -

i, alas, have no better guess than "in the minds & hearts of the co-players, in their shared space with the leader". the more curious part, to me, (also?) seems to be *how* that sort of relationship develops. and that obviously may vary hugely from (")leader" to (")leader("). ...the (supposed) clinton modus - "do whatcha want" - was already referred to.

with clinton — say — where does the trust in his judgment START, when they're the JBs!! and he's just this (charming yes fascinating yes) guy who's surely kinda not obviously in their league musicianship-wise? after five years, sure, they know to trust his judgment: but after five days?

i mean, i've sort of answered my own question: he is able to weave a spell which says "follow me beyond where you dare and we will make mighty music", but he needs THEM to actually make it, and they don't know what it will be until he's got them to do it, so where does the trust come in?

OK, I thought that's what you meant. I think that in the case of the Big Band era and continuing through to James Brown's band, the answer was largely economic. To have the best band around you need to hire all of the best players but in order to do so you need to have regular gigs and you need to be able to pay them consistently or they'll go to someone else's band. You may even need to pay people when there aren't any gigs and you're just spending time rehearsing. It's basically like being the boss of a company. Anyway, the whole thing is kind of circular. I guess a bandleader had to start a band, slowly build up a reputation, get more and more gigs, as the band's reputation increases, replace the lesser players with new players who are anxious to be a part of your group, etc.

In Beefheart's situation he basically was running a cult. Bill Harkelroad said as much in his book. Beefheart was older than some of the guys in the band and really took advantage of them, kept them holed up in a house and even physically abused them. I guess some of the older guys (I think John French) were exempt from this but overall it sounds like it was a pretty sick atmosphere.

I'd imagine the George Clinton situation was totally different as well. Those musicians were coming out of the economic touring band model I mentioned above but were probably united by common interests (drugs, rock music, and really stretching out musically) beyond a simple economic allegience. I'm just totally imagining here because I don't really know but it seems like Parliament and Funkadelic were sort of a cross between the earlier, businesslike, James Brown model of running a large band, and that newer, Beatles-led model of a group of buddies who stick together through thick and thin.

drums = great to teach rhythm from obv, probably ditto contrapuntal motion if not actual notes (which you can sing)

monophonic instruments (inc.singing), maybe not that great for teaching the groove of some contrapuntal idea you have in yr head

the key issue (for me): beefheart and brown were drivin their groups towards a new idea of GROOVE (CB's — at least on trotumask — more contrapuntally intricate than JB's); clinton i actually think this is a little less true of (in that it starts off somewhere between JB and sly)

yes i snorted a bit at jordan's answer as being mere jokey, but i'm the one bein naive here, aren't i? economics makes more sense than abstract charisma (and by the time of "new bag", JB was hardly an unknown quantity in terms of delivering Pop Success)

once he starts gettin it right often enough, then the charisma gets filled in as primary backstory (not that they don't all exhibit it)

But in terms of keeping a large band like that together it's not the chart success that matters, it's the live gigs. Clinton definitely haad a band already when Bootsy and the others joined and he had already released some vocal stuff as the Parliaments. Being a popular touring band or even just getting lots of gigs on a local scene would have been much more of a draw to a working musician than the kind of chart success that we judge these artists by after the fact.

introducing the CONTRAPUNTONICA, for bluesmen w.more than one mouth!!

haha cf rahsaan roland kirk

Um, what about Morrissey, or Van Morrison, or Jim Morrison for that matter. I don't recall ever seeing those cats play *anything.* So, in Morrissey's case, how does the music writing process work? I guess I should have read that Smiths bio after all.

this reminds me a certain discourse around the movies, where actors say "i didn't feel like he was directing me at all" or "i don't remember ever being told what to do" or even "i don't know exactly what he DID"--but the evidence of whatever was "done" is right there on the screen. see: ford, dreyer.

i guess what i'm invoking is the idea of this almost subterranean mode of direction, of leadership. where a few gestures here and a few words of encouragement there, well-placed, seem to produce the sort of thing you'd expect to leave more obvious traces.

--i meant to write.

A ha. I did not know this. So I guess presumably he writes via piano and presents or collaborates with his sidemen via that.

i've no idea where i read it, maybe in the new yorker years ago

i realise this begs a barrel o'worms

(ok part ii. wz the sea captain in the simpsons)

I was tempted to say no way, absolutely not but I guess there are some similarities to Beefheart. Coleman was an eccentric who would wear his hair long in the '50s and stuff like that and his band was made up of high school kids who were much younger than him. So he probably did have more of an influence over them than he would have had over 3 older guys on the NY scene. I've never heard of any cultlike funny business though. The 13th Floor Elevators definitely had a strange dynamic though. Once again the older/younger thing, tons of drugs, scientology, etc.

also: d.cherry wz outer than coleman on the early recs (not sure what that proves)

when i interviewed ra in philly in the band-house THAT felt cultish, though in a fairly benign way

In addition to the aforementioned piano, he's credited with sax on the Birthday Party's Peel Session. Although it must be over-dubbed, cuz there's a part where his voice is heard at the same time the sax is playing.

(Beefheart also played sax on TMR, which doesn't appear to have been mentioned, and James Brown played the moog on Fred Wesley & the JB's "Blow Your Head")

He's not a 'great' bandleader though so I don't know why I mentioned them, other than the fact the he has a vanity big band and isn't a musician. Cos away from thread.

(note, this is not necessarily a bad thing)

I got it from Bit Torrent and share it on the ilx0r DC++ hub. You can get it from me when I am back at school.

Here's the way I sort of intuitvely understand it. I don't know if this is the official explanation but it's what seems obvious to me from listening:

In traditional jazz you have a fixed harmonic progression and the piano player generally follows and reinforces the progression while the soloists are playing. If you remove the role of the piano player and use only monophonic instruments (or mostly, ignoring bass for a moment) that solid harmonic foundation is missing. Then when improvising in a group context (i.e. everyone "soloing" at once) new harmonies emerge based on the way that different melodic lines combine. If all of the players are really listening to each other and are tuned into hearing this, they can change chords and keys spontaneously, creating a harmonic progression that moves freely, basically bringing improvisation into an area of jazz that was previously composed (the changes). The bass plays a big role in this as it can basically define the tonal center in lieu of the piano.

i haven't listened to any of the records for an age - i may be completely misremembering

his band practices in the same practice space that I do. I saw them just last night! I didn't see him though.

If I had to guess I would say something like this: There's no reason the concept of harmelodics couldn't work with polyphonic instruments. When Ornette was starting out, the absence of the piano from his band helped create a situation where it was possible to move away from a piano-dominated harmonic structure and develop this harmelodic style. But once these theories were developed in his head and worked out for years in the band it was possible to try to reintroduce a chordal instrument. Perhaps guitar was easier to incorporate since it traditionally had less of a dominant role in jazz than the piano and therefore less baggage. But the guitar would definitely play a larger role in defining the harmonic structure of the piece. In order to play harmelodically, the guitarist would really have to listen to the whole group and resist the reflex to just play the changes. I guess that's not so different from the horns though who have to listen to what's happening harmonically with the rest of the band and resist the tendency to just run the scales.

Again, this is just a total guess and not really based on much but my own impressions on listening to the records. I have no idea if this definition of harmelodics I'm using has anything to do with how Coleman actually thinks about his music.

Also what different things happen when - 'non-musician' leader leads 'musicians' (Beefheart, Eno etc) vs group of non-musicians make music together (e.g The Raincoats)?

No he can't

as i recall the trebly sound of TMR was supposedly down to zappa.

I think it was mentioned before but james brown's dancing might have played a big role in how he conveyed musical instructions to his band, I recalled after looking at this thread last night a TV prog where (one of?) brown's drummers talked abt him tap dancing rhythms that had made no musical sense (from a theoretical POV).

(also like an ans to the eno q)

Indeed I've read interviews /Boosty Collins and other JBs where they described a system of cues and signals tied to the Godfather's stage moves. Including fines for missing one or otherwise messing up...

julio i actually REALLY REALLY like the idea that JB communicated his ideas by dancing, since "being able to dance = YOU ARE TALENTLESS" is one of the grebt ultralame blokememes of music discussion

aha!!: also transcription-as-part-of-process = reading and writing as (part of) communication of otherwise too-new-to-be-grasped musical ideas

(my kneejerk position wd be that "it is contrapuntally intricate" = "it has been at some point PARTLY worked out on paper")

being able to dance = YOU ARE TALENTLESS" is one of the grebt ultralame blokememes of music discussion

strangely, this is not true of the most uberblokey uberrockist movement of all: mods

v: mclaren, m.
vi: morley, p.

"you provide the music, we'll provide the punctum."

I have really poor ears for production but other ilxers have come down hard on the production of 'lick...' (eddie hurt?), I have probs hearing bass on that record but I have problems with it ALL THE TIME otherwise I'm fine with the record. The guitar parts might have been simpler but wasn't there more percussion on decals than on tmr? I'll have to give this another spin soon...

I hate to say I know this, but Yanni can't read music. He just plays and he has somebody sit and transcribe and then give the music to the rest of his players.

I feel so unclean.

it is all about variant layers of cultural power hurrah!

What like Mike Mantler (who plays trumpet but not usually on his own records) yelling at Beaver Harris not to play fahking 4/4 time in my fahking band dumbkopf?

I'd love to hear some studio outtakes from those JCOA Communications sessions. According to the participant I did speak to about them, they would have rivalled that famous tape of Buddy Rich ranting at his band, except that everyone laughed at Mantler as opposed to being scared of him.

(apparently when Cecil came in to do his bit he immediately transfixed Mantler with a "don't try it" look)

Paul Anka at Company Week:

"I don't care if it's Derek Bailey. I'm the only important one on that stage."

(Pause)

"Where's Evan?"

I remember reading re:REM that it wasn't until "Out of Time" that the band even knew Bill Berry could play piano. Also, who would have figured Axl Rose to be some sort of Elton John-styled bombast powerhouse circa the early days of "Appetite?" Musical talent abounds in all sorts of places. You have to at least figure that, on the road or in the studio, many of these guys probably often have nothing better to do than learn another instrument.

x-post Eno can play rudimentary keyboards and guitar, but I think his strengths were as conductor. If you read "More Dark Than Shark" you learn all these neat tricks he used to record his first album. Like, he would have a song, or sketches of a song, then he would group together two bands to flesh them out and record two different versions. Then he would combine the two different recordings into a third version. Ta-dah! The beautiful chaos of early Eno.

but yes, some of it IS about the ultrasecret skeez of the apparently non-contributing leader

I didn't know this; I thought he was tolerably famous for playing no instrument other than his voice. He has been kind of snotty about it in interviews--playing an instrument, yawn, so bloody pedestrian.

The Smiths records were said to have been made with Marr giving him essentially finished music, which he would then put words onto. It's harder to imagine the same deal working on M.'s solo records. Various guitarists are credited as co-writers on them, but one imagines that they were probably less collaborative than the best of Morrissey/Marr.

I mean, I can imagine someone thinking that just-the-instruments of "How Soon Is Now" or "Cemetry Gates" is interesting; less so for "Everyday Is Like Sunday," so I'm suspecting that M. gave some prior direction on "Everyday" and other such tunage.

But when they got down to rehearsals Moz would v.often have put vocals on the *wrong parts*. Marr, great musician tho' he is, had a fairly conventional idea of verse/chorus/bridge that totally went over Morrissey's head. I think How Soon Is Now is a good example.