Can You Ever "Copy" Too Much?

Chas wrote:

"As far as putting a "stamp" on what I play, definitely. Everything I play sounds like a minor blues full of Horace Silver riffs and occasional sprinkles of tasteful Hank Jones stuff; most often (these days) played over a semi-funky jazz fusion arrangement. I do play things differently, though, depending on whether I'm playing piano or organ. All my organ stuff is straight out of the Jimmy Smith(RH)/Groove Holmes(bass) handbook. I'm sure everyone steals from their major influences. I sure do. BTW, I do also love that "balls to the wall" rock organ style (think early Santana, have forgotton the organ players name - old age)."

Thanks, Chas.

So, can you ever "copy" too much?

Definitely not! Oh, you want more? Sure thing. Despite the myths typically perpetuated by educators and those who can talk but can't play, history clearly proves that those who obsessively copied their mentors achieved the highest level of creative originality. In jazz it was Bird, Wes, Benson, Corea, etc. In rock it was Hendrix, Clapton, Beck and so on. The truth of the matter is that the language itself doesn't belong to any one artist, so we borrow it and use it in our own way when we improvise and compose. Therefore you can't copy too much, because you can never have enough language./QM

Hi Taike,
If we are not copying some one and we feel we are just playing our own thing then we need to take another look. I bet if we never ever listen to a note of music, we would be making some kind of mumbling sounds with not much meaning.

As a studying working guitarist I love Johnny Smith playing. His Moonlight in Vermont was out-of-site. Never studies any of his arrangements. Years later I found that I playing guitar with his flavor. The same for guitarist Tony Mattola. I listened for hours and never studied their playing.

So who did the Rap people listen to??

John C.

It's impossible NOT to copy someone's style as basically every music style developed from someone else's style. There's no beginning and there's no end.

Yet, there are those that develop a unique style of playing and make it their own. Still, they've been influenced by other styles. I think it's their arrangements, use of instruments, that creates THEIR sound.

Composing must be one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Ringo Starr said that he had given up on writing songs because each time as he'd written one John and Paul would burst out laughing since he'd once again rewritten a standard. I'm sure that we all have some Ringo in us.

So copying is good thing especially if it leads to developing your own style.

Now, what did Rap people listen to?
Speeches by Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini?

Taike

Can you copy TOO much....? Yes, IF copying is the end of where you take your skills.

Copying is where you learn how things HAVE been done. Playing (IMO) is where you learn to put your OWN stamp on things, through the blending of things that you have learned by study (copying, in part) and hopefully your own imagination and taste.

But copying is a tool you should use to forward your OWN style, rather than an end in itself. Copying helps you develop skills you might never have learned by yourself, but it (again IMO) shouldn't be a goal in and of itself....