BILL EVANS, the legendary jazz pianist of the 1960s and 1970s, had insightful things to say about playing music. Profiled in a YouTube series, The Universal Mind of Bill Evans, the series presents a conversation between Bill and his brother Harry, who were both musicians and music educators.
A classically trained musician, Evans was a strong believer in mastering the fundamentals of music theory before venturing into experimentation and innovation. He claimed that many of his students only approximated true jazz innovation because they had not mastered the elements of musical theory. That mastery, Evans implied, enabled the true musician to take music beyond imitation into individual artistry. As he put it, "They [his students] tend to approximate the product rather than attacking it in a realistic, true way."
I couldn't help but draw parallels between what Evans was saying about music, and the study and application of Christian Science. Without gaining a solid command of the basics in either discipline, how can one hope to move forward with his or her own unique style and sense of mastery? I thought of this from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "To be master of chords and discords, the science of music must be understood. Left to the decisions of material sense, music is liable to be misapprehended and lost in confusion. Controlled by belief, instead of understanding, music is, must be, imperfectly expressed. So man, not understanding the Science of being,—thrusting aside his divine Principle as incomprehensible,—is abandoned to conjectures, left in the hands of ignorance, placed at the disposal of illusions, subjected to material sense which is discord" (Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 304-305).
