Please don't hate me for starting this thread. There are so many other reasons to hate me. The reason I am starting this thread is because I made the claim that "Jazz musicians pretend that Jazz is much more complicated than it actually is." This pissed of Robin, and he told me to make a thread so that he could educate me.
I am ready to learn.
A background note:
I was in a jazz band for a couple of years and we played gigs around town. I would not claim to be a good jazz pianist, but I at least have some experience playing jazz. Obviously, this is not nearly as much experience as Robin, but since one can have an opinion about music they have never played, I think I am perfectly qualified to have an opinion about music that I have played
I'm going to guess that he is going to start listing off concepts in Jazz that I haven't heard of. But let's keep in mind that this is doesn't prove anything - my experience with jazz is not necessarily relevant to my claim. Also, i believe that there are concepts that exist in Jazz which are very complex. But my claim is that Jazz musicians would have us believe that there are ideas of extreme complexity which they are processing at any moment when playing a tune, but I would argue that most of Jazz is just deducing the mode, picking a scale, and mimicking motifs from either the tune or from others' solos.
And that is where, I am about to be told, I am completely and utterly ignorant.
I'm ready.