A old musician's joke - and a gca question

[Peter Pallotta]

A young vocalist has landed an audition for an important gig at a local club. She hires a pianist to accompany her. At the audition she starts off with a couple of jazz standards, and the club owner seems to like them. Then the club-owner asks, "Can you sing 'When Sunny Gets Blue'? It's one of my favourites". She smiles and nods, but turns to the piano player and whispers "I'm not sure I know that one all the way through". He whispers back: "Don't worry about it, I know it. If you get stuck, just look over and I'll prompt you". So the vocalist starts singing: "When Sunny gets blue / Her eyes get gray and cloudy..." but pretty soon she senses she's about to get stuck. Trying to look casual, she turns for help towards the pianist -- who leans-in eagerly and whispers "B Flat minor 9th".

Is there a golfer-architect analogy to be found here?
Are there things that architects do because they think they are *helping* us but that actually don't help us at all? 
Can architects sometimes be like that piano player, i.e. be so dedicated to their own craft they forget that their "design" (chords) isn't our "game" (lyrics) -- and that what good *architecture* requires isn't necessarily what a good *golfer* requires?

Peter


   

[JMEvensky]

Bunkers placed solely to keep balls from going someplace "worse". At my place,several bunkers catch balls that would roll down slopes (some admittedly severe) away from greens. For most,the 30 yard pitch shot would be easier than the greenside bunker shot. The only ones helped by the architect are the good players--they don't need any help.

[Greg Smith]

A lovely post!  The two things that rule my (extracurricular) life are classical music and golf architecture.  It's grand to see the two in one place.  That's one reason why I love Patric Dickinson's little book -- he likes to talk about music too.

I've been poring through Sven Nilsen's voluminous old thread about changes at Augusta -- to get back in the Masters mindset.  That thing is full of people wondering about just this question -- do architects sometimes end up tricking themselves.   At Augusta though, the question of comparing 1934 vs. modern is more about "member's course" versus "tournament course" and how that might affect architects' thinking, and about how renovators/changers may be guessing at the wrong things (sometimes).

[Peter Pallotta]

For me it's "variety". I know why any architect worth his salt feels the need to provide it, but they ain't doing *me* any favours. When I haven't had to hit a PW in 3 or 4 holes, it's a real pain to get to a very short Par 3 with a wedge in my hand and try to remember what the heck I'm suppossed to do with the wind blowing and the green perched up and surrounded by bunkers 107 yards away. Ian Andrew has a hole like this at Copper Creek. It's one of my favourites on the course; but after I bogeyed it several times I started wondering what had happened in Ian's childhood to make him such mean, twisted man...

[Steve Lang]

Peter,
Love that joke..
If Ya can't keep a good Dorian Mode down, "So What"?  Beyond chords, its the melodic phrasing over them, seeking the harmonies, tension & resolution like a classic Bach Chorale, its the timing & techniques combined that can be appreciated, though one need not know the words, scatting over them, its the notes man,.. most that play by ear know when it works, before they find the theory to support it, Miles down the path... good players appreciate some, but little that they fly over on way to a number.. of favorite things

[John Connolly]

Peter,


Do you literally mean "help" or are meanings such as "impress, intrigue or beguile" getting at the same point?

[Peter Pallotta]

John - I did mean to focus on the 'help' part,  but your impress and beguile aspects make it a much better question. There must be plenty of that going on amongst pianists and architects both!
Peter

[Mike_Young]

I would say height of cut, especially greens would the be my first answer.  But your thought process reminds me of this test: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/pearls-before-breakfast-can-one-of-the-nations-great-musicians-cut-through-the-fog-of-a-dc-rush-hour-lets-find-out/2014/09/23/8a6d46da-4331-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html?utm_term=.2d91256d4472    I would love to see that played out in GCA and see how many of the GCA dork dudes could figure it out....

[John Connolly]

I would say height of cut, especially greens would the be my first answer.  But your thought process reminds me of this test: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/pearls-before-breakfast-can-one-of-the-nations-great-musicians-cut-through-the-fog-of-a-dc-rush-hour-lets-find-out/2014/09/23/8a6d46da-4331-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html?utm_term=.2d91256d4472    I would love to see that played out in GCA and see how many of the GCA dork dudes could figure it out....

Joshua Bell = TOC


Gotta pay attention or you'll blow right by.

[Peter Pallotta]

John, Mike - maybe the truth is that it's never just about the music (or the golf course).
Once, when Lionel Hampton, despite playing his heart out, couldn't seem to get the crowd at a riverside park really excited, he got one of his sidemen to finish off his solo but ditching his horn and jumping into the river.
The crowd went wild!
When the sideman got back on the stand, Hampton promised him $20 more if, after the next solo, he jumped in again.
With the second splash, timed to coincide with the end of Flying Home, the screaming standing ovation proved that the veteran showman (and terrific musician) could still get an audience in the palm of his hand.
30 years earlier, he had made -along with Goodman, Krupa and Wilson - some of the best small group jazz ever recorded.
But he knew that it wasn't just about the music.

[Sean_A]

Pietro

I do struggle with the Lionel Hampton deal because I dislike the vibraphone!  Its fine in very short measures or for adding punctuation, but to listen to it being banged on all song is very tiresome...rather like how I feel about bunkers   

What does good architecture require...for you anyway...and how does that differ from what a good golfer requires..if anything?

Ciao

[Marc Haring]

Peter,
Love that joke..
If Ya can't keep a good Dorian Mode down, "So What"?

I'm assuming Steve that that is another musicians joke referencing the old Miles Davis number?


Back to the question, I recall Gary Player once stated in an interview that it was impossible for a regular golfer to design a great course as they had never had the experience of how to truly strike a golf shot with authority!