I often wonder why it is that people will seek out beauty. Whether it be in the form of nature itself, beauty in the form of music, fine art, abstract art, photography, theatre etc. People may also find 'the beautiful' in the academic world too. In learning a language, in studying philosophy. Beauty is not only confined to what we commonly know it to be.
People are, and have been seeking out beauty intentionally for hundreds, if not thousands of years. You will see people at art museums, at the local theatre house, at symphony orchestras every week. What is it that draws them to such places? What is it about beauty that keeps people coming back?
There certainly seems to be a desire to 'see' something. Well it seems obvious doesn't it, they wouldn't be there if they didn't want to see it. But I am referring to something deeper. Why do they desire to seek it out? Might it be because they like it? But then, why do they like it? I think if you got down to the bottom of it, they would say because they desire to see beauty. Perhaps they would not use the word 'beauty' itself but they might say something like:
"I went to that play to get glimpse of something surreal"
"I love listening to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra because there is something 'other-worldly' about classical music"
"When I look at the works of Salvador Dali... words just escape me!"
There certainly is something inexpressible about most of the beautiful things we seek out and I believe it is that 'inexpressible feeling' that we are all seeking. This is saying something about us and who we are. On a personal level I find that after listening to my favourite classical piece 'Sueno en la Floresta' by Barrios, everything else seems much smaller in comparison. I was less bothered by little things and I felt I could see more clearly. Mind was clear, body relaxed. Calm and Tranquil. I think most of you will know 'what' I am talking about but may see it in a slightly different way. Still something I am trying to work out for myself so if you have any ideas, let me know :)
See you next week ;)
JL
PS: Hey guys! So this is my 3rd original I am uploading to Youtube and I have decided to make a music video out of it this time. I have tried to keep it simple to stick with the 'Less is More' idea so I hope you like it :)
So I just uploaded a new video a couple of days ago and at the end announced that I was taking part in this year's World's Greatest Shave.
For those of your who don't know it's a fundraiser run by the Leukaemia Foundation Australia to help raise money for blood cancer. In taking part the person raising the money has to shave their hair and so you'll all get to see that in my next video. Im not exactly looking forward to it but my hair grows pretty quickly so shouldn't be long before I am back to normal :).
My next video will also be an original and it is in the genre (I guess you could say) 'New 'Age'. A nice mix of electric and classical guitar. It is nothing too fancy, I've tried to keep it simple at least for now. I already have quite a few ideas for more upbeat pieces and those you will see in the near future :) So working title at the moment - Less is More - pretty typical of that I have been blogging about lately but an appropriate title for the piece nonetheless.
Thanks to everyone for the support in the World's Greatest Shave fundraiser. I have raised 75% of my $1000 goal and there is still just under two weeks to go! If anymore of you would like to help out I'll put a link down below to my sponsorship page. It's amazing what we can achieve some of the time with the help of others. I guess as humans that's what we're meant to do. I don't know of too many people who think they can make it through life on their own. At some point we all need somebody else to share life's laughs and burdens with.
'Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind'
That's how the wise man Solomon once put it regarding desire and envy. A lot of the time we are not at peace with what we have. We always want more. We always try to fill our lives with as much as we can just so we don't miss out on something.
Socrates the famous Greek philosopher said something similar in regard to this. He said those who are at peace with what they have are like a person who collects jars of honey from a bee hive. Once they have filled their jars they seal off the lid and store them away. They can rest easy. Their job is done. However, the one with a constant desire for pleasure is like one who is trying to collect honey from the bee hive but their jars are cracked and flawed. They spend all their time trying to fill the jars but really they are getting no where. It is a form self-enslavement. 'A chasing after the wind'. Meaningless really....
The photo above I took whilst in Hawaii. Along the side of a highway was a scenic spot. There lay a large area of ancient solidified lava that slowly led down to the ocean. I saw this rock and something about it struck me. It wasn't particularly fancy, nor very big. It just stood there. Tranquil. At peace. Well at least I thought that's what it would be feeling if it could think. It is just one of those moments that you feel you don't need anything else. That if all you had was food and clothing you could be content with that. Riches and fame didn't really matter. Why would they when I could have this experience for free? I was in my own place, my own state of mind and nothing was bothering me.
I think if we try to look for these moments more often we would find that they are all around us. I mean if a rock can do that to me then I'm sure a million other things could too. The most of obvious place I find this feeling is in music of course. Tiny little vibrations are grouped together to form patterns that we recognise as notes and melodies. These sounds are more than just particles hitting one another in air and finding their way to our ears in that they somehow can create a meaningful experience of beauty and peace. Instead of chasing the wind, why not listen to it....?
Sometimes we need to take a step back in order to move forward. Or so said my teaches back in high school. That's what I have been doing lately and after a lot of thinking and a couple of live gigs I think I might have actually found a sound. At least for the moment. I kind of found it going back to my roots.
The music that always inspired me the most even before I picked up the guitar was the music of Govi. I had no idea who he was but I loved the music. The pleasant blend of latin rhythms mixed with romantic melodic phrases and the occasional pan flute just left me in awe. I remember trying to figure out which genre of music it was and learning that is was called 'World' or 'New Age'. Since then that familiar sound has stuck with me and I have always been able to pick out other New Age artists. So is New Age my sound? Well yes and no. I want to be able to create that atmosphere that Govi created for me. Somewhat 'spanishy' yet contemplative. A sound that has a latin feel yet somewhat atmospheric. Rich romantic melodies but also spiced up with a little jazz. I wouldn't even know what to call the style. It certainly would be a mix and I don't think it could solely be based on one style or genre. But I feel it is what I am going to stick to in terms of originals for now.
We can often be so focussed on the future, or even the busy-ness of life in the present that we can forget where we came from and how we got here. Sometimes it's those moments between everything that we need to pause and reflect on the past. Reflection. That's another aspect I want my sound to have. As I said before 'contemplative'. I guess everything musician wants people to listen to their music and be taken to another place. To bring them into the writers mind. That is partially what I would want my music to create for others, yet I would also like to create a moment for people to reflect for themselves, on themselves. To give them a breathe of fresh air free from whatever else their lives had been consumed with. It's what I felt when I listened to Govi and it is my dream to do the same for you.
So when I'm not playing guitar, working, studying or wasting time on youtube I sometimes get my camera out with my very average 18-55mm lens and try to take a really nice photo. Most of the time I get caught up trying to make it fancy by adding all these effects and taking shots in very crowded areas to make the photo look busy and impressive; but it usually ends up being one that I am never happy with.
As with my music, when I am trying to create a melody or a 'solo' I am almost habitually inclined to try and make it complicated. Whether it be a complicated melody, a complicated solo, a complicated harmony, I always seem to try to make it 'hard' and often try in vain. Why? Well I guess it's that juvenile concept I still have about making things look impressive, and if it's not fast and complicated, it's no good right? Slowly I have learned that often simplicity can be a lot nicer than over complication and a lot more effective. You need to give people time to breathe. To take in the music, the notes. As I mentioned in a blog earlier 'Less is More'. That's not to say that fast and complicated music isn't good, some of the greatest pieces of music are so hard I wouldn't even be able to play the first two bars. But creating a fast and 'hard' melody for the sake of being fast and 'difficult' definitely misses the point of a melody. Sometimes one simple idea is all it takes.
Like the in the photo I took above (yes I know the lighting and exposure could be better) what attracted me was the 3 simple colours of the flower, the glasses, and the flower's stem. The image hardly has any depth (actually it is rather flat), and there was nothing difficult about taking the actual photo. It's just three flowers. Yet there is definitely an aesthetic quality in it's simplicity. Actually when you think about it life is a whole lot nicer when it's simple. When you don't have to worry about work, studying, exams, how to pay rent etc. you can actually just sit back and appreciate things for what they are. And sometimes we still then try to make things complicated for ourselves. We think, 'well I am relaxed now I can go and buy something else to pay off', or 'I can work towards something else that I haven't done yet' meanwhile creating the whole complicated lifestyle we just got out of not too long ago. Now I don't know if that is necessarily a bad thing or not, you tell me, but I do know that making things complicated for the sake of being complicated ain't going to do you any favours.
However, the funny thing is that sometimes, we find that the simpler songs are harder to perform. How do you stand out amongst the crowd of people that have played this song a hundred times? How do you write a nice simple melody over the same three chords that everyone else uses? How do you take a really great photo of a flower than a thousand people on flikr have shot? And so on and so forth.
Turns out less not only is more, but more work too.
Besides my rant on all that contradictory stuff (simplicity not being simple after all) I had a gig which went well about a week ago. Performed Manuel De Falla's 'La Vida Breve' and Paulo Belinati's 'Jongo'. Was definitely sweating by the end of them. Got a couple of weddings coming up and a new video in about a week. As well as a new original this month so make sure you stayed posted.
If you haven't seen my latest video let me know what you think.
Apologies once again for the great delay in writing another blog. University exams crept up on me along with a whole bunch of other stuff. Anyway, Uni is done for the year which means more guitar!
I just uploaded Barrios' Vals 3 if you haven't seen it yet, it was one of the pieces that I did for the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria (CGSVhttp://www.melbourneguitar.com) competition last month. I also performed Phillip Houghton's 'The Ancients'. I was lucky enough to win my division which meant I got a workshop with Slava Grygorian.
I was pretty stoked about that. Got to meet him last Monday and we had a good chat (along with the winners from the other divisions). Unfortunately it wasn't a guitar masterclass (so I didn't get to play for him) but he gave some great insight into the industry and quite a few professional tips (also got a signed CD which is always nice).
So what next? Well.. I just found out the 2012 Adelaide International Guitar Festival is holding it's competition again next year in August. The audition round opens between the 2nd of January and 29th of February next year. We need to send in 3 recordings as our audition. Two Prescribed and one Free Choice. I have just started looking at the two prescribed pieces and well.. they ain't easy.
1) BWV 997 Sarabande by Bach
2) Dervish (2nd Movement) from Phillip Houghton's 'Stele'
Not sure what I would do for a free choice yet, but I have a few ideas floating around so wish me luck for that!
You might have seen the other channel I startedhttp://www.youtube.com/user/GlensideMusic, that one is just for something different. Not exclusively for guitar, but a channel for some fun collaboration. Should have another one on that channel up in a week or so.
As for my main guitar channel, I plan to put another two piece's up before I go overseas but also while I'm abroad I'll have plenty of time to record on my laptop so stay tuned throughout the summer (or winter if your on the other side of the world).
Just a quick update but I shall post again next week :)
Just had my exam yesterday and I guess I can’t complain how it went. Felt pretty good about how I played everything, there was the one wrong note but other than that, pretty smooth sailing. It’s taking a while to get the audio footage from the guitar festival so I am thinking to just put up another one of my exam pieces. After that next video should have another original up. Probably another duo kind of piece. I have two originals in mind that I’m thinking of uploading. One is a more upbeat and the other more contemplative. The upbeat one has a bit of a spanish feel to it as opposed to the more relaxed one where I have a classical and electric guitar kind of reciting a poem. Anyway stay tuned for those two and my next video.
So a part of my university degree requires me to do a an architecture unit and so if you’ve been wondering where i’ve been, it has been doing a ridiculous amount of drawings and sketches. I rather be playing guitar honestly but oh well. Such is life. Surprisingly though I have found the subject quite interesting, and as I do with most things I somehow find a way to relate it to music. The piece of architecture we have been looking at is the ‘Farnsworth house‘ by Mies Van de Rohe. It’s one of those ‘you don’t know the name, but you would have seen it before‘ buildings. I don’t plan on analyzing the building here (done enough of that already) but I am interested in the philosophy behind it. The principle is basically ‘Less is More’. To most people, it is just a glass box on a platform, with 8 columns holding it up, but like any great artist this architect has managed to make his master piece look effortless. It is so simple that it simply blends in with it’s surroundings. My understanding of architecture before hand was to fill up as much space as possible and to make the building as complex as one could. Same was my conception of music. I always tried to make songs complicated and technically difficult but overtime I began to see that making something hard for the sake of making something hard only takes away from the piece. In that case, more is less.
What this guy did was just to let the space be. He understands the utility of absence, of the void. He knows what will be used the most. Namely nothing. In a similar kind of way I have tried to adapt this into a musical context. We should appreciate the spaces between the notes as much as the notes themselves. Filling only what is necessary to the piece itself for it is the silence that gives birth to sound. This whole ideology reminds of a little bit of chinese philosophy my dad once told me when I was younger, I think it is quite appropriate to this scenario and definitely to musical composition.
‘We take and mould clay to form a bowl, yet is the space where there is nothing that the utility of the bowl depends.
We put bricks together to make a house, yet it is the space where there is nothing, that the utility of the house depends.
So just as we take advantage of what is, so should we recognize the utility of what is not.’
So i’ve finally got round to recording and filming another original. I should have it up tomorrow so keep checking back to see it. It is quite different to my first original as it isn’t just a solo work, but rather I’ve tried to add another dimension by trying to write for two instruments plus the backing instruments. It actually started out as a vocal song (Lazy Days) with lyrics, melody and all the works, but I decided that I’d like to create an instrumental version as sometimes the lyrics didn’t do the feeling justice and plus my youtube channel is really just guitar anyway and I wanted to stick to that. Although I might create another channel with a few people to do other stuff like that, so perhaps you’ll hear it one day. The melody of the electric guitar differs greatly from the original sung melody but I felt it needed to, in that without lyrics the guitar needs to find its own way to ‘sing’. The song is called lazy days for a reason, and that’s basically all its about. It actually started out as a Bossa Rhythm while I was playing around with some jazz chords, and eventually it kind of developed a verse chorus kind of form. I kinda just wrote down what I was feeling at the time and within 20 minutes I pretty much had the original vocal version and lyrics down. That was while I was in singapore actually. When I returned home, I wanted to add another dimension to the piece, to make sure the music would speak the same language as the original lyrics. I’ll post the original lyrics in the video if any of you are interested and let me know whether you get a similar feeling.
So the dinner show is coming up as I have been talking about for the last few weeks and there has been some last minute changes. There is now going to be some opera, and some dancing as well to accompany the guitar which should be fun so hopefully I can get a recording of the performance too. There are so many other things which I am working on too so hopefully I can just get a lot of it down before Uni starts again.
Keep checking this page for the link to the new video!
So I've finally finished all things Uni but unfortunately for only another 3 weeks and then we're back on - so i'm trying to make the most of it. You should see my new original up soon which you might find quite different to other things I've put up but who knows you might like it. As some of you know I like to keep the variety fresh so hopefully this next one is. I'm also still in the midst of practising for this upcoming dinner show which is only 2 weeks away now. I find it's amazing how many pieces you can learn when you have a deadline, goes to show a little pressure doesn't hurt here and there.
I've often, when trying to compose music, and arrange other pieces always tried to fill the song up as much as I could being a soloist and all. I've always felt that the more there is to hear, the more interesting the piece will be to my audience. Lately though my perspective has changed a little. And it is kind of like (though not exactly) the 'if there was no suffering, there would be no joy' argument. Silence in piece of music is essentially the other half of the story. If there was no silence, all we would hear would be a continuous sound and it would cease to be to music. I think i remember John Williams saying that the 'spaces between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves.' I see this to be very true, in fact now when I practice I am paying even more attention to the voids in the work. To the silence between the sounds. And those two things in summation is what creates the beautiful thing we call music.
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music - Aldous Huxley
Architecture is the frozen music, music is the flowing architecture.
I actually found this quote on my other friend’s blog and thought there was something to it. When we listen to music we mainly listen to the melody, or perhaps the phrasing and harmonies. We spend little time concentrating on individual notes (unless we are learning a piece) and just let the melody flow. At the end of the song we generally have a good idea of the main tune and it kind of sticks in our heads, especially if we have enjoyed it. I’ve read somewhere in my studies that architecture, or a city (architecture on a larger scale) should invoke a similar kind of experience. As we walk, drive, or cycle through the city it shouldn’t resemble a bunch of fragmented buildings/structures, rather it should generate a kind of ‘melody’. A visual one. One that once you’ve left that area, you have a clear memory of that phrasing of architecture. It’s as if the buildings were connected together, flowing like musical notes. Just some food for thought.
Last exam approaching next week. Finally starting to get the ‘Romance Flamenco‘ tabsheets done and will be able to start recording my next original soon. Also got another one of these Dinner Shows coming up on the 16th at the same winery. Looking to be a good night so far. Not much else besides that but I shall be back on top of things next week!
After playing a certain way for 7 years to try and change your technique even only slightly is a real pain. I never realized how difficult it would be to change old habits. At times I feel like a beginner again, having to go back and play basic pieces just to get this wrist positioning and finger attack right. I know its worth it in the long run but for now its not the most enjoyable playing I have to do.
I did say I would upload the video of my duet at the guitar makers festival however it is taking me longer than I thought to the get the video footage and I’ve been told it will take 3 or so months to get the audio. I don’t know why, but I think i’ll wait anyway just so the quality is as good as I can get it. This means my next video will be an original, so i hope to get that up in a couple of weeks. It will be a little different to my last one. I’ll have an electric and classical guitar in it to change things up a bit so keep checking back for that one.
Like I’ve been studying in uni, in order to fully understand something, why it exists, or why it is the way it is; it is often necessary to go back to it’s origins. To understand urban development we go to Ancient Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, Catal Huyuk etc. Lately I’ve been exploring the origins of the guitar which has brought me back to the Lute and Theobo. These instruments never really appealed to me until I started listening to Baroque music that I was playing on the guitar, on the Lute. Somehow the music comes alive in a completely more authentic way. Well a lot of Bach’s music for guitar was originally written for the Lute so it’s no wonder there is this feeling of authenticity. But I think there is just so much to learn from hearing the music being played on it’s original instrument. Context is everything, and as far I see it, there is no greater context than listening to the music in the original form it would have been played.
If I could get my hands on a cheap Lute in Australia I would, but it seems the cheapest you’ll get here is a custom made one, and don’t think I’m really in a position to pay $10,000 to just try something. If you know of any cheap lutes let me know. I’d be very interesting.
Was quite an experience performing at the guitar makers festival. Got to play some great guitars, steel strings and classical. Watched some amazing performers showcase their own works and it really gave me some insight into the music that no one really ever hears. There is so much to the music world that we don't hear about or know exists that I think we are missing out on some great stuff. I guess it is because these artists don't belong to your typical mainstream radio group, and are not run by a producing company telling them what to write and how to do it. Everyone there was playing for themselves and in my opinion that's the best way to do it.
I got my friends to film some of the festival and I got a mix of stuff that I'm thinking of putting up. Of course once i get the video of me and Sergio doing the Piazzola Tango i'll upload that one but in the meantime was thinking of just putting up some clips of the Allan Bull guitar I played. Was an amazing instrument, beautifully balanced and a real sweet tone. Was kind of sad coming back to my factory guitar but hopefully I'll get my hands on one of them one day.
So the end of my uni semester is approaching soon, which means well, exams and all, but the good news is I’ll have a nice break to really get some stuff down. I’ve also been lucky enough to be asked to play at the Melbourne Guitar Maker’s Festival this Saturday evening. I’m doing a duet with my old Guitar Mentor (Sergio Ercole) again and we’ll be performing Piazzola’s Verano Porteno. I’ve heard great things about this festival, there are many great guitarists showcasing their stuff and their guitars so if your in Melbourne drop by and check it out (i’ll add a link below so you can check it out for yourself).
Call me pessimistic but lately I’ve been feeling like there really isn’t enough time. Not enough time to be able to learn everything I want to. Not enough time to master classical guitar, acoustic guitar and work full time eventually. One day I won’t be here anymore, and what would my time have accomplished? Perhaps I learn everything after I’ve left this place, or maybe I don’t learn anything at all. I chose not to study music because I believed that I could do both. Study Planning and Music. I still believe I can do both, but its really not as easy as I thought. These days there is so much to learn about everything that it is impossible for one man to master everything. Go back 2500 years ago, a guy like Plato was considered a master of all disciplines. MAthematician, Scientist, Philosopher etc, but since then science itself has become so specific it is beyond comprehension. And believe me I did not think there could be so much to think about in terms of planning either. There is just not enough time to do it all.
So if in the big picture of things there is not enough time, what is our time meant to be used for? Well relatively speaking a lot of things can be done in our short time and there are things which we can’t exactly take away with us but things that we can leave behind.
People have left behind music, ideas to change the world, questions to pursue. So are we to try and make the world a better place? Can music play a part in that? Music, being such a universal language one would think it could play a part. But exactly how I am yet to figure out.
In our known universe there are various laws that govern it. I used to think that maths and all these formulas were something that someone came up with in a classroom one day. However overtime it seems that maths and science has been more of a discovery than an invention. Clever minds working out how things work rather than inventing them. Sure we came up with the representation of it in the form of our numbers, but the actual laws behind the math have always been there (though I know many would debate this) and it has been those clever minds that have found these underlying principles on which our known universe functions.
I might have lost some of you already but there is a musical relation I’ve been thinking about.
Do we invent or discover music?
Well if we think about it, music is made from sounds, sounds made from particles hitting one another, and there are various frequencies of these sounds that create what we know to be different pitches and notes. So I guess from a materialist’s point of view music is just a specific order of a bunch of frequencies of vibrating particles. That point aside for another day , I wonder if all Bach works already ‘existed’ before he wrote them. Was he just clever enough to find the right mixture of sounds to create his master pieces? And what makes the bunch of notes he put together any better or worse than the notes mozart put together?
Without making things too confusing I think there are a set amount of frequencies as far as we know. We discovered these sound waves and vibrating particles but we do invent different ways of organizing and expressing these sounds. So perhaps the greats of music have been those who have found a unique way of expressing these sound waves in a perfect balance of melody, rhythm, dynamic, and artistic influence. I really am not conclusive on any of this. Perhaps more thought
Jesse
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A lot of my focus these days has been on my examination pieces, which i feel is good and even though I am not spending as much time on more contemporary stuff I believe (and i can only speak from experience) that without even really playing other genres much, once i've completed my exam my playing will have improved across all styles. You might be thinking that it is just in my head and that having a certificate has a psychological effect on me and therefore I feel i have improved when I haven't really. Well of course the piece of paper with my Grade on it in reality means nothing, but the process whereby I have gone to obtain this piece of paper is where the real progress is. And somehow this art of practising and playing classical guitar is universally beneficial to all other styles of guitar. Now the link to acoustic finger/chicken picking wouldn't seem unreasonable as classical guitar is always with the fingers and thus fine motor skills are developed and improved. But in terms of using a pick and playing chords and melodies common to jazz and more contemporary styles and often contrary to classical - now thats where I am confused as to how I am able to improve without playing much of it.
I am not trying to label the classical guitar as the superior style, but I am somehow intrinsically convinced that it is by far the best grounding one could have in terms of a guitar background. I mentioned in an earlier blog that one should try to learn both classical and jazz guitar, I am not going back on that but still the classical discipline has this solid foundation that I can't ignore, that i don't see (or haven't yet seen) in any other style.
Anyway, I've got a few things due for uni so fitting in time for guitar won't be easy, but I should have another video up in two weeks so check back soon :)
So as I said last week I had my gig at the winery with my old guitar teacher and a couple of other guys. It went really well I must say. There was a great response and a possibility of even another one in a couple of months so I really can’t complain.
Even though it went well, there are always parts that I wish could have sounded better. In the practice just before the show I felt the pieces were sounding great, the dynamic, tone, speed, but then as I started i began to think to much. I was thinking, how it was sounding out in the audience, how my positioning was, what other people were thinking and so on. All of this obviously detracted from my concentration of the actual music and naturally I became a little nervous and consequently fumbled here and there. Guess that all comes with experience. I also found my guitar was too quiet in the mix and I got a little feedback here and there because of my positioning. Sound and mixing is another art all in itself and one I am yet to perfect. You might have the song down back to front, inside out, left right and center but if you don’t mix it right people aren’t going to appreciate it the same way you do.
When i rocked up to the venue, the chair they gave me was a little high and quite uncomfortable and I think bothered my playing a little. Of course I am not going to blame the chair for any mistakes, but it is just something that can distract you every now and then and add a little bit more to that uneasiness. I reckon i’m going to bring my own from now on as I think there is enough to worry about already.
All in all it was a great night, great food, didn’t get to try the wine but apparently that was great too. I’m looking forward to the next one and to start working on some new material.
I am in the process of getting the video off my mates camera so keep checking back here for when I get it up in the next couple of days. Hopefully tomorrow!
Had the great chance to play live on an Italian radio station with my old guitar teacher last Monday. We played 3 duet pieces. A Scarlatti Sonata, a Piazzola Tango, and The Millers Dance. These are the same duos that I’ll be playing this Saturday and that I’ll hopefully be able to video. Playing live in the studio was a great experience and although you still get nervous, it is a different kind of pressure to that of playing in a concert on a stage. The environment is more enclosed and you don’t have the sense of hundreds of eyes fixed on you but the pressure to play perfectly is still there and is still something I am yet to overcome. It seems to me any experience is good experience, and that one should try to play in as many different environments to try and be conditioned to the point where anywhere feels as comfortable as their own bedroom.
I guess I want to get to the point where I can sit and play in front of an audience and feel like I am sitting in my favorite chair at home. Where nothing is distracting me, where my surroundings are but mere images, where I can simply enjoy what I’m playing and nothing else. I’ll be honest, yeah sure it is great having people watch you and complementing you on your playing but the place where I get most satisfaction, the place where I truly play for the soul (or whatever you want to call it) is at home. And if I could bring that mentality everywhere with me, to make any place feel like home with my guitar - I would consider that a main goal of my playing career. I think once you’ve reached that level, the audience starts to realise too and that’s when you become one of the greats. That’s when it is no longer about technical side of things, not about the scales, not about sharps and flats, but that’s when it is all about music and the transcendental.
In the mean time I guess I am to push my self to get involved in all kinds of performances, ones I want to do, ones I don’t want to do. Solo ones, ensemble ones etc.. You can never get enough practice as they say.
Sorry i didn’t manage to get a blog up last week everything has just suddenly started to pile up. Got a gig at a winery doing a duo and quartet thing which should be pretty sweet although it means i’ve got to learn about 14 new pieces in two weeks.. I’m getting there. Slowly. We’re doing a bit of classical, spanish and flamenco and hopefully i’ll be able to get a good live recording of it up on my page once we’ve done the gig.
I’ve been looking into a few things lately concerning music, trying to get out some tabs but its taking longer than I thought. Got a lot of ideas for music as usual but its just hard turning these concepts into actual music. I find using the loop pedal is a great way to get ideas down and refine them but then again it all changes once you add drums bass and synth into it. Still working on jazz guitar a bit, i find its pretty useful in writing and everything, go a lot more dynamic and variation since i started with the jazz stuff.
Been looking into the lute vihuela as well. Considering getting into some of that repertoire but i don't know if that's gonna hinder my current stuff. It's good to know a bit of everything but as soon as you start too much in one area your taking away time from another. So its probably good to go everything in something and then only something in everything. I would try everything in everything but I doubt that is humanly possible. The only problem is to figure out which style i should invest the most in. Ah well something to consider.
