I believe it has a LOT to do with knowing scale patterns and root notes.

Me

"Jazz is supposed to be the ultimate of improvised expression. The music is about the moment of music and it's expression at that time, not it's beautiful motifs or smart chordal arrangements"

Thats one of my issues with pretty much all Jazz i have listened to. It's over complicated and for me, with no reason other than "Look what i've learnt to do."

I am not intersted in thinking about what i'm listening too. I like to hear music that compliments itself on both the ears, and with the message. Whether it be the obvious "Since my baby left me" kind of message, or "Fuck you" message, I don't want to have to be thinking "What is the music trying to tell me? Oh - it's telling me that not only can I play 100 notes AROUND the key, look how much 'out-of-tune' stuff I can play thats techincal and complex"

There's nothing wrong with simplistic music that compliments the ears and compliments the emotions.

There's nothing wrong with black & white music. Not everything has to be techincally grey area'd, and it's another reason I hate Dream Theater - it's, for me, over-complicated music simply for the sake of seeing how far they can take the music.

Hands down, Petrucci is a phenominal guitarist and incredible musician - but what he does bares NO interest to me at all whatsoever.

I like Alexi Laiho, but most would argue "IT'S JUST SHREDDING AS FAST AS HE CAN HE'S GAY" - Fair point, but atleast he's not trying to do give an under lying message.

This post was edited by bob(Cs2) on Jul 29 2011 03:34am

Here's your problem right here. You're trying to explain it. In the world of art, sometimes it not meant to be understood, but simply experienced. Perhaps if you think of jazz more like this:

It is the performance of creativity.

I love a smart song, but there's a creative process that happens before the final product. Jazz is the performance of that process. I'm sure you'll get into it one day one way or another. You still may not like it, but it's a very necessary form of music like no other that all musicians should experience if they'd like to further their musical expertise.

Very well said. I feel like I have to justify why I don't like Jazz, but without the music theory knowledge - everything I say gets a long and thought out reply, which is fine, but it still doesn't change how I feel on it.

I freaking LOVE Stevie Ray Vaughan, but the one song I just ignore out of his entire back catalogue is Stevies Swang. It's a jazzy piece, and I just deleted it outa the collection and havn't bothered with it since.

I simply like Blues a hell of alot more than i'm prepared to give Jazz the time of day for.

This post was edited by bob(Cs2) on Jul 29 2011 05:18am

I the blues
Howlin' Wolf is the man!

Definately - there's an endless list of superb blues singers and guitarists, both male and female, aswell as truly great songs.

This is fine.
This is not. That's lumping in however many jazz musicians there have been over the last century or so and saying that they all played jazz for the same reason. It's not true, and no one would have an argument with you if you stopped trying to justify your tastes.

Saying that jazz is intricate is accurate. It CAN be complicated, yes. But saying it has no emotion is completely wrong. You can convey ALOT of emotions through jazz just like many other genres.

I personally do not like simplistic music. I like overly complicated classical or technical metal, etc. You CAN have both emotion and technicality in a song.

let's keep this rolling