Quote Originally Posted by omarthefish View Post
I've always taken issue with that metaphor. It suggests really lame form performances. I don't want to get to far pushing it but really scales are not even forms. They are basic exercises like stance training or 2 and 3 move combos on a bag. There's vastly more involved in a decent form performance and the right analogy is really performing an entire piece. A good form performance should have distinct parts. And entrance, build to a crescendo in the middle and some sort of denouement. If you want a musical analogy to fighting I would say something more like a live concert or better still, improvisational jazz.

A full song, like a form, is entirely choreographed but still allows for tremendous room for creative interpretation and personalization . . .but for the most part, all the notes are planned out ahead. It's in creative improvisation where you get the unexpected and the need to adapt to your "co-creators"/opponents. That's where you have to adapt to what other people are doing on the fly and respond appropriately.

The metaphor of scales as forms and song as fighting does a disservice to the requirements of both forms and fighting. It dumbs both of them down.
Nice to see you again, Omar.

My intention was to suggest that the fight was not like a prearranged song, but more like improvisational jazz or baroque in that it was guided in certain ways, but depended on a knowledge of how the notes relate, which is what is suggested in most scales.

Of course, the moves of a set are more complicated than a tone, but I still feel that forms are the scale of a style, they contain what "notes" are in use, how they relate, and why. This will not hold true for all forms, some forms repeat sections and do contain combos, so, like most analogies, there is never a perfect fit. True, to call a single step and a combo both "notes", but functionally, the analogy is useful. If you cannot improvise on your scale, you do not understand it, if you cannot improvise using your form, you do not understand fighting.

However, the idea of the form as a piece in music is not very good either. A piece in music rarely relays a complete methodological approach, but only pieces of music theory that, together, convey emotion. A form worth learning conveys a complete methodological approach.

This is, of course, biased by what form I practice, which does not contain portions solely meant to convey stance, but is almost entirely application.

I like your comment about the "cocreators/opponents" contributing to improvisation.