jazz ... art, science, both ?

[Ctrl Alt Delet You]

     A quick analogy, if you will. Visual artists learn to draw stupid things they may not necessariliy want to in order to learn how to more acurately express their emotion or feeling. By being better able to draw what one sees in front of him, one can then more accurately draw what one sees in his own mind. 2¢
   

[Mark Schlipper]

excellent point Ctrl*

the more tools (skill sets) at your disposal, the more fluent you are on the instrument.   but i think its important (and often neglected) to remember where to draw the line between simply applying technique, and playing.  as sidereal said earlier:

"But it don't stop there. Once you've got the science of it, you're then free to express and be an artist on your instrument."

this whole thing brings up an interesting side note.  my band mates and i have been discussing the idea of bending time in a song.  its just piano, guitar, and drums.  the pianist is classically trained and lot of that involves flexability of time to establish mood.  my bandmates and i have all run into a lot of drummers that preach "the pocket" and "feel" but get fascist about keeping perfect time.  and that to me can be kinda hypocritical.  can i play with a click? sure can.  but that kinda feel is not always the best for a song.  so you have to kinda forget your training to be a human metronome (the science bit) and simply feel the song with the other band members (the art bit).