Re: Crossover!
Crossover is incredibly difficult to categorise or even define, when a musician is in their infancy of discovering and learning an instrument or indeed thier voice, influences, technique and natural style will often be something they themselves can't put a finger on.
Like for instance a guitarist who at an early stage in learning(be it training or just self teaching) will be able to 'feel' things without knowing it.
For example some notes in a simple blues improvisation that they may perform with certain inflections or natural musicianship this is often subconcious and is down to the music they have been exposed to. They may be perfoming a short easy classical study but with a subconcious 'blues feel' as that again is music they have been exposed to, or vice versa.
This is eluding to the way we learn or even think about music, it is so organic and instinctive that we crossover all the time.
To deliver a certain tone in a piece of music we may resort to a traditional technique or we might play with a different feel deliberately to better communicate a point.
Often a good way of showing examples of established and well thought out cross over is to look at artists that had success in tne field they are expert in and why and where they crossed into other styles and what response this was met with,
Example, not everyone likes bach but Jacques Loussier was able to sell thousands and thousands of records swinging many different examples of Bach's writings within a small ensemble.
His piano playing was of a very high standard, he like many musicians saw the many references that have been drawn by pop, rock and jazz to bach's understanding and development of harmony but instead of then using that as inspiration he takes examples of the original materiale.g preludes, chorales, passacaglia's etc and pulls it out of authentic performance practice and experiments with it as structure for improvisation and differnet feel.
Paco de lucia is possibly the most respected and lauded flamenco guitarist of recent times has worked within the field of Jazz with many of that genre's long standing and inovative contemporary artists, his crosovers have won much critical and popular acclaim.
Yo yo ma, the cellist is another interesting one, he has released disc's of latin amercian music, tango and choros.
This style of music demands a high standard of technical ability and an understanding of development in music, thins yo yo ma has as a classically trained musician. The type of music though is historically played by street musicians and improvisers seeped in the culture of Argentina and brazil.
His crossover brought this music to a wider classical audience but defnately didn't crossover in an inovative and forward looking way.
Anyway jsut some thoughts.
Matthew
www.matthewmcallister.com
