Lonnie Johnson shows Bob Dylan something

[matsb]

Has anyone read the passage in Bob Dylan's "Chronicles" about the mysterious theory that allows the performer to present a strong musical solution to the audience, without having to look for his or her feelings so much, they beeing unreliable and hard to control - doing their thing through counting by the theory? And Understood it? And maybe even, unlike myself, maybe you have heard of this before.

It's about dividing the time in threes instead of twos, I believe. And then something about notes 2, 5 and 7, if I remember it right.

I have scouted the Internet a bit, but found little.

I just thought it could be cool to learn a convenient system like that, so if anyone knows anything about it, please don't hesitate to step forward.

[RedRain]

You kinda lost me, and I havent read "chronicals" but I know that guy James Taylor says that he gets his energy from the audience when he plays the "classics" beacuase they have long sinse lost there original emotion behind the writting. He gets the energy from what the tune means to the audience now.

[matsb]

I see what you mean, James Taylor uses the audience's emotional power to put life into the songs.

But the method Dylan talks about in the book didn't rely on emotions, but was rather a technique where you count beats and divide measures and sing certain notes of the scale.

Emotions are fine, but you need technique too. Or I'm just fooling myself and it's emotions I should look for. In myself and other people.

[The Nazz Are Blue]

I've never heard of it before but you got me interested. Sounds like it has the potential to be pretty useful. I hope somebody here knows something about it :yay

[The Nazz Are Blue]

btw, did he actually describe it and how it works in the book or did he just mention something about it? (i have yet to get my hands on the book :rolleyes: )

[matsb]

Dylan describes this technique or theory or approach in a very general manner. I guess that to be able to use it practically you would have to see an example with a particular song or piece of music and how it is manipulated.

And I'm not sure the Swedish translation I read is correct. Translators often seem to mistake triplets for triads etc. To look it up in the original will be a next step in the investigation.

Or is it some sort of joke of Dylan's? To put "ants in your head" (Swedish expression).

[RedRain]

Well, now that you mention it Matsb, who knows what Dylan still has up his sleeve.

[juniorspecial]

I read Bob Dylan's book, in the original language, and the various things he actually said about music made no sense to me.

I definitely think he was trying to put ants in your head (great expression!).

:lol

[matsb]

Juniorspecial, I think the things he said about music did make some sense, but not the sort of sense you can easely translate inte other words or explain to others. It's more like. . . poetry.

Doesn't Dylan find the world bewildering enough as it is? Why else should he go about putting ants in my head?! Oh, he mistook it for an ant-hill...

[Skip]

I read it last week actually and I didn't get it...but that is just one more thing I don't get :lol I intend to reread it and write it down - When I will revive this thread if it is dormant.

[matsb]

Good man, Skip. I haven't looked any more into it. So many things I want to do and don't have the time managing skills to make them actually happen.

What would be interesting is to find something from the Lonnie Johnson side, a biography maybe - I just googled and skimmed a few sites: nothing on 2s and 3s, but it seems he used an unusual tuning. . .

As for waking dormant threads - the timeless issues we're dealing with here on TFF makes that a must IMO. And also if like me you're v e r y :ahem s l o o o w