Arthur C. Clarke wasn’t writing about musicianship, or was he?
Clarke’s “Third Law” famously states “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
He was writing about science and technology, but this adage has applied more than once to my own musicianship journey.
I remember Steve Zegree hearing and analyzing chords in real time when I was a young singer in Gold Company. It seemed like magic. Now I’m pretty good at that.
I remember Gary Lindsay looking at my big band chords and spotting notational errors that seemed invisible to me. It seemed like magic. Now, I spot them in my students’ writing.
I remember hearing Ella Fitzgerald scat sing on “Stompin’ at the Savoy” with Louis Armstrong and…well, no. That still seems like magic.
As an aspiring musician, my heroes’ musicianship was so advanced as to seem like magic. Now I understand it.