"Music speaks louder than words. It's the only thing the whole world listens to." Daniel Lieberman President Make a Wish foundation International.
One of the greatest people i've had a chance to work with. Truly an awsome guy. I'd probably have given up jazz without him. I think these words speak for themselves... Is this phrase true or not?

I think "good enough" is never good enough. Learning a musical instrument IMHO, is really a lifelong learning endevour...I know it is for me!

Simply when everyone around you full heartedly cheers ! Then the job is worthy (but bearly) of just good enough.

When you sit in the quiet and the only thing that you hear is you, can you still hear the music? When you strip away all of the layers of self doubt and all of the societal urges that drive us, what do you hear? Can you sit in the quiet and hear only you, or does the world that you live in sound loud in your ear? When you sit in the silence can you hear your heart beat? Do you hear the bass that drives us all? The steady thumping that turns life into life. That is the essence and the soul of it. Take the time to turn it all off, the TV, the computer, the radio everything. Strip away society from your thought processes, and feel yourself, all by yourself. Turn off all the lights and close your eyes and listen, with no filters on. Just listen until everything goes away and what you will be left with is the music of your soul and it will be so sweet. Just stop and listen. Listen

Russ

"Good Enough" is a relative thing. It should be constantly evolving. But who sets the rules for 'good enough'? What is 'good enough'? Define 'good enough'! If good enough is how much technical ability or knowledge you have, then we limit ourselves greatly. There are some fantastic players out there who have no idea what they are doing techniclly, but we look at them and say 'WOW'!!! There are others who have great knowledge of theory and/or can play the most complex music in the universe, yet say nothing with it. In essence we should never consider ourselves 'good enough'.

"Good Enough" is simply when you smile to yourself when you finish playing a piece...

Good Enough is as good as I will allow myself to feel at any given moment in time.

I agree with what bill has said to a point, but I guess he didn't pass math in school.believe me math and most anything in this world is ART,its must be learned and put in use.no different than a painter or musician,I thought that way long ago,
than a 4.0 math buddy of mine showed me his art in motion when he custom designed bass cabs for me
I never realized the math that was involed in what I thought would be so easy, sorry bill I get
your point, but theirs a whole world of art out there don't close your eyes and miss it

ah brother Robert...you still need eyes to see? I was reading an article from a former microsoft executive who affirmed what many others had claimed about its "masterpiece" os Windows...."buggy as hell and sometimes things "break" for no reason". (I guess Bill Gates flunked math too huh?). What I am trying to share is the fact that there will allways be a "ghost in the machine"....you dig? Can you name the no. 1 music hit of january 1942 in St. Petersburg Fla. ?? Nice try. But I bet you remember what the Mona Lisa looks like. That is because it is a genuine masterpiece (not paint by numbers)...My personal journey has taught me to approach music the same way....not that others are wrong, I just stir the soup to expose spiritual intent,....moral?....you get what you play for. People like Miles Davis were probably good at mathematically technicle formulations to music,yet...he broke every rule in the creative calculator...why? What did he and Jaco understand that made what they created so everlasting??....it was the ghost. They could hear,smell,feel,taste AND see it...WE are the ones who put numbers to their stuff and "break it down" so we can shave their hairs off what these true masters were playing for the purpose of self indulgent fantasy. If you really use your eyes, look at your bass right now!...you see wood and steel and plastic...harmony between Nature, Technology and Man (who created plastic of course) . All thats missing is the touch of flesh and blood hands driven by a force that refuses to be calculated or manufactured....SPIRIT aka.-SOUL ...."learn everything and the forget what you've learned....

Bill-
Believe me, I'm no fan of the "painting by numbers" approach to music, art, literature, sports, cooking, etc.
Music, though, does lend itself very well to Mathematics. In our little corner of the world...12 tones, cycle of fifths, chords built on 3rds, realtive minor/major, etc.
Rhythm, too, can be dissected & studied from a pure math angle(a lotta times, I still gotta count...especially with one of those polymetric-type drum dudes). ;-)
I love Mark Levine's opening statement in his book, JAZZ THEORY-
"A great Jazz solo consists of:
1% magic &
99% stuff that is
-Explainable, Analyzable, Categorizeable, & Doable.
This book is about the 99% stuff".

It's that 1% that's the killer, huh?!

I gotta go with Robert on this one Bill. You put Bill Gates at the top of the Math World when he is really just the number one hit of St. Petersberg Florida in 1942. Math is art, just like music, it creates, inspires, and is the structure of things that everyone uses every day. Without the art of math and the artists that have studied it, and can play it, the world that you live in would still consist of throwing rocks at animals for food. You remeber the Mona Lisa, what about the theory of relativity and the fact that the earth revolves around the sun? Without the art, and the true artists of math, who did the same as the great Miles Davis and "broke every rule in the creative calculator" have created the very world that you and I live in.

Russ