A friend recently shared this TED talk with me and I think it's definitely worth passing along. Benjamin Zander gives a very powerful demonstration of how music speaks.
Brant Grieshaber - guitarist
Guitar Teacher
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Music as truth
I had a few experiences this evening that got my brain going back over the relationship between music and truth. (Yes, this is going to be another more philosophical/spiritual post rather than a technical one.) This is something I've thought about a great deal throughout my life. The relationship between music and truth is also something I haven't payed much attention to for the past couple of years. More on this soon... The recent experiences that stirred up my thinking anew were these:
1 - Listening to three a cappella songs by Ravel that I'd sung in choir while I was in grad school and hadn't listened to for several years. One in particular, Three Birds Of Paradise (translated), moved me almost to tears while sitting on the bus. It did that to me 15 years ago even after countless rehearsals. There's a truth and a tenderness in that piece, regardless of who's singing it or where/when I'm listening to it, that transcends time in my own life.
2 - Having dinner and playing board games with two old friends, one of whom is experiencing the rather slow loss of his sister to cancer. His ideas about life and reality have often been found challenging by many who meet him. Tonight, they had the common element of "daring," but playfully and engagingly, even happily so.
3 - Reading a great article about "left" versus "right" in the political climate and what this editor believes journalism should be aiming for. The article, for me, reached beyond extremes and compromises. It spoke of reality in a dynamic and ultimately undefinable way that we rarely find in "news" reporting.
That's the stage. There's obviously far more to it than that, but there are the more immediate influences. Those are the things that I've been paying attention to tonight.
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My general thought is this - Music is a language. It's a way of communicating. We can communicate many things with one another - concepts, desires, images, feelings, realizations, formulas, regrets, beliefs... We use spoken language so regularly and for so many things that I wonder if many of us give pause to consider what we're trying to communicate at all when we speak. I wonder how often most of us pay attention to what's being said when we think we're listening.
Music is a language. It's a way of communicating. It's a LESS COMMON (I'm shouting...) way of communicating that speaking or writing. That doesn't make it less effective or more important. It DOES make it less familiar. That means we pay more attention. We tend to pay less attention to what is familiar and more attention to what is less familiar.
We tend to pay more attention to music whether "speaking" or listening. When we're paying closer attention to what we say and to what we're listening to, we're more likely to communicate something that is a deeper truth and we're more likely to hear that truth. If you're among those who create music, take a moment to consider the truth that you're speaking. If you're more a listener than a player, take a moment to think about what you're listening to. Are you really listening? What is the music telling you?
Brant Grieshaber - guitarist
Guitar Teacher
1 - Listening to three a cappella songs by Ravel that I'd sung in choir while I was in grad school and hadn't listened to for several years. One in particular, Three Birds Of Paradise (translated), moved me almost to tears while sitting on the bus. It did that to me 15 years ago even after countless rehearsals. There's a truth and a tenderness in that piece, regardless of who's singing it or where/when I'm listening to it, that transcends time in my own life.
2 - Having dinner and playing board games with two old friends, one of whom is experiencing the rather slow loss of his sister to cancer. His ideas about life and reality have often been found challenging by many who meet him. Tonight, they had the common element of "daring," but playfully and engagingly, even happily so.
3 - Reading a great article about "left" versus "right" in the political climate and what this editor believes journalism should be aiming for. The article, for me, reached beyond extremes and compromises. It spoke of reality in a dynamic and ultimately undefinable way that we rarely find in "news" reporting.
That's the stage. There's obviously far more to it than that, but there are the more immediate influences. Those are the things that I've been paying attention to tonight.
-----
My general thought is this - Music is a language. It's a way of communicating. We can communicate many things with one another - concepts, desires, images, feelings, realizations, formulas, regrets, beliefs... We use spoken language so regularly and for so many things that I wonder if many of us give pause to consider what we're trying to communicate at all when we speak. I wonder how often most of us pay attention to what's being said when we think we're listening.
Music is a language. It's a way of communicating. It's a LESS COMMON (I'm shouting...) way of communicating that speaking or writing. That doesn't make it less effective or more important. It DOES make it less familiar. That means we pay more attention. We tend to pay less attention to what is familiar and more attention to what is less familiar.
We tend to pay more attention to music whether "speaking" or listening. When we're paying closer attention to what we say and to what we're listening to, we're more likely to communicate something that is a deeper truth and we're more likely to hear that truth. If you're among those who create music, take a moment to consider the truth that you're speaking. If you're more a listener than a player, take a moment to think about what you're listening to. Are you really listening? What is the music telling you?
Brant Grieshaber - guitarist
Guitar Teacher
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Why the guitar is like a lover
So far, my posts have been primarily about the technical and conceptual aspects of playing guitar. This evening, I'm going to depart from that and touch on the spiritual, and to some extent, the emotional side. Playing guitar is an unending ritual of courtship. Get used to it!...
Desire - We all come to the instrument because we want something from it. It's doubtful, in many cases, that we have much of an idea as to WHAT we want, but we want something. It seems to magically hold some promise for us that we eventually give in to. It's this desire that fuels our relationship with the guitar.
Flirting - Most people don't get past this. They pick up the guitar and play with it when the mood strikes them. They flirt with the guitar without giving much consideration to what lies inside. What makes it tick. What makes MUSIC tick. Those who do look closer find a good deal more.
Presence - "Being there" is what the guitar wants. It wants to know that you're listening, that you're focused. Being attentive to the little details of how we move and how the guitar behaves are the very definition of the path on which we tread every day.
Honesty - The guitar is like a mirror in this way. When we're dishonest with it, it lets us know. Haven't practiced in a couple of days? Feeling disengaged? Don't know what to say? Are you frustrated? The guitar will reflect that with the most pure sincerity. If you're dishonest when you pick up the guitar, you won't like what you hear. Be sincere. If you're honest about where you're at in every way, you'll feel it.
Dedication - Time and effort are a necessity in order to play guitar. There are times when giving those things are not what we have in mind and we have to deal with that. Practicing is something we need to learn and practice! We all reach a place where we have to dig our heels in sometimes. We learn that "doing now" is an investment.
Humility - The guitar doesn't respond to demands. If any of us are unfortunate enough to persist in insisting on getting something we want from the guitar, we meet resistance of some kind or another - tendonitis, despair, sloppy playing, gibberish, bad tone... The guitar is really here to teach us about ourselves. We learn to approach it as something to listen to and learn from. This has a lot to do with the practice of honesty and dedication, which lead to:
Altruism - Somewhere along this path, we begin to realize that the guitar really only responds to one thing - what we give to it and give willingly. What we want from it becomes inconsequential as we begin the courting ritual anew every day.
Desire - We all come to the instrument because we want something from it. It's doubtful, in many cases, that we have much of an idea as to WHAT we want, but we want something. It seems to magically hold some promise for us that we eventually give in to. It's this desire that fuels our relationship with the guitar.
Flirting - Most people don't get past this. They pick up the guitar and play with it when the mood strikes them. They flirt with the guitar without giving much consideration to what lies inside. What makes it tick. What makes MUSIC tick. Those who do look closer find a good deal more.
Presence - "Being there" is what the guitar wants. It wants to know that you're listening, that you're focused. Being attentive to the little details of how we move and how the guitar behaves are the very definition of the path on which we tread every day.
Honesty - The guitar is like a mirror in this way. When we're dishonest with it, it lets us know. Haven't practiced in a couple of days? Feeling disengaged? Don't know what to say? Are you frustrated? The guitar will reflect that with the most pure sincerity. If you're dishonest when you pick up the guitar, you won't like what you hear. Be sincere. If you're honest about where you're at in every way, you'll feel it.
Dedication - Time and effort are a necessity in order to play guitar. There are times when giving those things are not what we have in mind and we have to deal with that. Practicing is something we need to learn and practice! We all reach a place where we have to dig our heels in sometimes. We learn that "doing now" is an investment.
Humility - The guitar doesn't respond to demands. If any of us are unfortunate enough to persist in insisting on getting something we want from the guitar, we meet resistance of some kind or another - tendonitis, despair, sloppy playing, gibberish, bad tone... The guitar is really here to teach us about ourselves. We learn to approach it as something to listen to and learn from. This has a lot to do with the practice of honesty and dedication, which lead to:
Altruism - Somewhere along this path, we begin to realize that the guitar really only responds to one thing - what we give to it and give willingly. What we want from it becomes inconsequential as we begin the courting ritual anew every day.
Friday, February 4, 2011
The shredder chimes in
German Shauss commented on my previous post and was kind enough to take a couple of photos demonstrating his own thumb position. Compare these to the photos in my previous post, The Most Common Bad Habit And Why
Here's what German has to say:
"I did grow up playing and studying classical guitar before I got an electric guitar at 14. I keep my thumb behind the neck but sideways, this enables my wrist to stay straight even when I wear my guitar low. It's very comfy on your hands and tendons as you don't overbend the wrist. Also since I don't use it as an opposing pressure force I don't fret so hard and can play less cramped and very fluid."
Brant Grieshaber - guitarist
Guitar Teacher
Here's what German has to say:
"I did grow up playing and studying classical guitar before I got an electric guitar at 14. I keep my thumb behind the neck but sideways, this enables my wrist to stay straight even when I wear my guitar low. It's very comfy on your hands and tendons as you don't overbend the wrist. Also since I don't use it as an opposing pressure force I don't fret so hard and can play less cramped and very fluid."
Brant Grieshaber - guitarist
Guitar Teacher
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
left hand
I posted a couple of weeks ago regarding left hand technique with an emphasis on guitar players who have classical training. Here is a link to a friend of mine from the shredder world who has unbelievably good technique. Take notice of his thumb in most of the photos.
Play on,
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