Dave Wirth
"I have no desire to perform."
For the longest time, this quote had perplexed me. What did the person mean? That they just hadn't made up their mind? Were they confused about sharing their creativity? Did they fear they had nothing to share? Was it that they were just shy? I have tried to remain respectful of people's wishes on performance. I felt like it wasn't my call. Still, the nagging question: Is performance required to learn guitar? After reading Hillman Curtis's fantastic book, "MTIV: Process, Inspiration, and Practice for the New Media Designer," I feel that it's perfectly clear that performance is not a requirement for learning guitar.
Hillman Curtis explains that inspiration for his graphic design work comes from more than just other graphic designers:
In any given week, I'll visit a gallery, buy or borrow a few cds, see a couple of movies, and study my favorite movies on DVD. I'll read art history, film theory, fiction, and poetry. And, of course, I immerse myself constantly in design books and magazines. It's all part of my ongoing effort to draw from the work from others.
Like many of the people I work with, I do not want to have one of my favorite, inspiring, enjoyable, and creatively stimulating hobbies be ruined by the possibility of it going too far. I want to enjoy typography, and not edit fonts on my computer for hours on end. I want art and drawing to enrich my life, not my web presense (it's immense enough already; I share too much). I wanted Argentine Tango to make my body move around and express music, and I never had any aspirations to become the best tango dancer in the world. All of everything I choose to do inspires me and enriches me, and thus it spills over nicely into my creativity and pedagogy, aka the stuff I get paid to do. Thus, any hobby that I take up doesn't have to be taken to the extreme in order to be learned. It can simply inspire! Performance should be viewed the same way. If it's going to ruin the love of the hobby, then forget about it.
If the prospect of performing gets in the way of that beautiful infusion of inspiration, that bottom-less well of creativity, that timeless enjoyment of guitar, throw the idea out.
