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Monday, July 13, 2009

Thelonious Monk: Epistrophy

I love Monk! I have a soft spot in my heart for the way he plays piano. Monk manhandles the piano like any good bluesman would. A lot of blues cats play with flat hands, in other words we don't curl our hands like proper piano players. Boy did I get years of grief while growing up learning to play piano about my hands, but when you play without the curve, you might give up some speed, and dexterity, but you make it up with POWER:-) Monk plays with power! I also like how he lives on the edge when playing. As a piano player I know he is playing out in the danger zone. Where you are riffing along, and suddenly you're going too fast or in the wrong position and now you have to ad lib like crazy to make it back to the ground safely. I dig that kind of music. To me that is excitement. Just watch Monk as he literally teeters, and flies around the keyboard. Sometimes just playing with on finger better than anyone else could play with ten!

1 comment:

Mac Daddy Tribute Blog said...

A classical piano teacher would say this is the worse technique in the world. But it worked for him. He is exciting. Who knows what he's going to do next?