Dave Frank Master Class Lesson on the Marx Brothers: Deviating from the Rule

In my line of work I came across a number of people who can’t wait and learn a few essential skills, and hit the ground running. They believe that doing their idea quickly is far more important than leaning the skills to even execute that idea properly.

These people wanted to rush through technique and pass over things that seemed “insane” or “childish” or “time consuming”. There were even some musicians I know that even skipped completely over the basic chord patterns and progressions that were all necessary for them to progress and grow as an artist, in the hopes of “becoming the rock star of tomorrow”.

Everything needs time to grow. There is no way that you can plant the seeds today and expect to harvest the oranges tomorrow. This rule of nature applies to almost everything in the world. However, that basic law of nature can simply be overlooked because our modern society pushes the idea of “do THIS instantly!”

If you join the hype, you can lose 30 pounds in a week, learn the Sun Salutations in three days, and get your Master’s degree in a month. When you look at these things in a slower pace, what is the quality going to be like? Thinking at a slower pace, what is the quality that you will have? How many exercise routines can you actually learn in a week? How many moves can you remember by heart in 7 days? Can you do a Head-stand without killing yourself if you rush Yoga?

A lot of musicians refuse to learn to play the bass and form a rock band on the spot. They buy some random equipment, start hammering things out, and end up finding that they hit a brick wall.

After attending Dave Frank’s workshop last week when he featured the hilarious and very talented Marx Brothers, I realized that it is very important to learn the rules first before you can break them. Yes the techniques of Chico Marx were no way learned from a conventional piano lesson, but the point is, he learned the basics at the very least. Chico fired the wrong notes intentionally to entertain, but the piece still was great – he hit the “perfect wrong notes”. And of course, how would he know which notes to miss if he did not know which ones to hit?

The rules should be learned before they can be bent. As a musician, it is important that you learn that you know the proper scales and chords before you can improvise.

If you have heard about him he is not just any jazz piano school owner and musician.. Dave is one of the hottest solo jazz pianists music educators on today's jazz scene, the man behind Hal Leonard's best-selling book series Joy of Improv.

The Dave Frank Master Class on the Marx Brothers is available on Youtube. To view just click that link.

Part 1 can be viewed below.

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