The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

Before reading this blog post, remember that it is not unusual to gravitate to one of these motivations a bit more than any others. This is not "black and white" so-to-speak. We all want to learn, have fun, feel creative, and connect with others. However, each of us has a bit more compelling of a reason to do it. The following is a summary of four of the most common motivations all of us, including me, have when we pick up the guitar and decide to learn it.

Fun and Enjoyment.

Enjoyment? That's probably the number one reason why people play it and want to learn it. If it looks fun and enjoyable, then why not?

Connection.

Connection. There are people out there who feel that the most important reason to play guitar is to connect with others. I am reminded of a colleague in grad school. Her mother always held her as a baby and played guitar at the same time. The result is that she formed a sort of association of connection with the instrument. For her, seeing a guitarist live meant she could feel that connection. Getting together and playing music with other people is a fantastic way to just hang out too. Musicians love to hang.

Creativity.

There are people out there who look to guitar as an avenue to create. The tell-tale signs? Time passing by and enjoyment of finding and exploring the capabilities of the guitar. Pushing the sound. Recording musical thoughts. The person who is obsessed with creating music just wants to find the ways that work for them with guitar, and educational tradition is playfully tossed out in the pursuit.

Intellectual Stimulation.

There are many people out there who love to learn. However, there are people who like to know the nuts and bolts of music and want to know what it's all about to a large extent. Learning guitar, for these people, is often guided with an intense curiosity with regards to music theory and/or scales. For these people, guitar is a lovely way to grow and expand their thinking abilities, and look cool at the same time when they play... of course!

I just had a marvelous opportunity to share my music with a very close friend. It was a blast. It felt like it was received with warmth, and playing it for her made us feel like we connected on such a nice level, a human level. It got me thinking: Just exactly how related are creativity and connection?

For quite some time now, I've come to understand that creative pursuits and ambitions need a certain amount of isolation and time to develop. Perhaps it is best to wait and see if a song is worth playing for others. Perhaps it's best to wait until your heart feels completely settled within a painting before showing it to anyone. Perhaps your short story isn't truly done until you know that anyone else's well-meaning but ultimately distracting editorial comments have no effect on you. Perhaps the iphone application isn't done until you have bug-tested it mercilessly, and and optimized it for usability. If you like this argument, then the next logical question is: When does this self-imposed creative isolation stop? When does the sharing begin?

Sharing, to me, is connection. If I share a song with others, it means I want to connect to them and say "Hi- this is me, and thanks for hearing me talk about something important to me. By the way, thanks for not making fun of my goosebumps and shivers because I am feeling quite a bit naked right now. Is there a draft in here? Do you have an extra pair of underpants I can borrow?"

Connection is hardest for the artistic introverts out there who consider what they create to be the highest expression of themselves. If we create something, ultimately we might want to share it so we can connect with others. It doesn't have to be en-masse. It can be a friend we want to connect with, a lover we want to get closer to, or an entire audience of people we just want to bare our souls to. If you are stuck on when to release your own creative output, then maybe you should ponder this question: Who do you most want to connect with?

 

There's a great line in a Destroyer song: "Formative years wasted / In love with our peers, we tasted / life with the stars." I couldn't have found language that was more clear about the whole idea of what we were doing. The twenty people who understand what you're talking about are the twenty most important people in the world. Maybe that's the difference between professional culture and outsider culture. Our antennae were tuned very specifically for like minds, as opposed to sending out a signal to convert people. There are some kinds of art that are trying to find their peers, and there are other kinds that are trying to make peers.1

This quote is from the insanely readable book, Our Noise, the Story of Merge Records. 

Jenny Toomey is the author of the quote, and she raises a fantastic argument. I wish more Austin, Texas based musicians would think deeper about the implications: What are you trying to do with your music? Are you trying to connect with other people, or are you looking to be famous?

1. Cook, McCaughan & Ballance, Our Noise, the Story of Merge Records, 15.

This is the final part of a three part series on Genres and Creativity. This post is about better understanding how genres and originality really just want to pick a fist-fight with each other.

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This post is part two of a three part series on Genres and Creativity. This post is about what can happen to a band that chooses a genre first, and then creates music to fit it. This post also gives a clear example about what happened to a band that played music first and didn't care how it was received.

Read the rest of this post »

When you think of the musical genre commonly known as Funk, who is the quintessential funk artist? In my opinion, no one is quite as funky as James Brown. The question that piques my interest is which came first: James Brown or the genre commonly referred to as Funk? Seriously think about this for a second. Which came first: The artist's music that defined what we commonly refer to as "funk," or the name of the genre? This could be a silly thought, but I highly doubt James Brown meditated on music one day and decided: "I hereby name a new style of music called 'Funk,' and I have decided to write an entire body of work that typifies this new style, even though I've not even dived into it yet." I am also highly suspicious of anyone who says that he did.

Going on the assumption that James Brown didn't originally state that his music was Funk, who did? If he had nothing to do with the naming of the genre "Funk Music," who on earth did and WHY? I also feel the same way about any genre, as it were. Metal, folk, etc.

I am a tad weary of how music can commonly be described by genre. It kind of bothers me. "It's a combonation of Shoegazing Britpop with a touch of Psych thrown in." So, is what this basically means is that you marry My Bloody Valentine with Blur, and throw in a little dash of The Magical Mystery Tour? The reason my eyes start to glaze over when music is described this way is because I am really thinking, "Oh, it won't sound anything like the picture I have in my head."

Why do people use genres to describe music? Simply to better explain a band's music to another person. Communication. Connection. Critics love genres too. Genres help them communicate their ideas of what a band's music can be compared to, presumably to help the listener become informed about the music they want to buy. People who depend upon using genres to describe music however are put in their place when a band completely transcends these labels.

If you were to give Radiohead a genre, what would fit best? Rock and Roll? Perhaps in the case of OK Computer but not in the case of Idioteque. Electronic then? Perhaps in the case of Kid A but not in the case of Videotape. Interesting thought isn't it? It's great because all of their albums stand out as something different. I like every single one of them because each has it's own signature. Radiohead never stopped experimenting, and somehow they've always seemed to find their way. The fascinating part is that I think that neither Radiohead with In Rainbows (or The Beatles with Sgt. Pepper) had the foresight to pick a genre first and create the music to fit that genre. I have a strong hunch that they would find that incredibly constricting. Basically, I think they pick music over genre.

In the next blog post, I am going to steer the discussion to the way bands operate in regards to genres. A central question: What happens when bands pick a genre first, and then create the music to fit that genre?

Shoutout to Susan for sending this to me!

My buddy Mike is graciously allowing me to read his (hard to find) copy of "Arcology. The City in the Image of Man" by Paolo Soleri. Apart from being a bit unsettling, it is one of the more visually stunning and aesthetically beautiful books I've read. I want a copy now.

I stumbled across this really awesome quote by Merce Cunningham in Time Magazine. He died at the age of 90 this year.

"You have to love dancing and stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It's not for unsteady souls."

My post yesterday dealt with the the rush to share songs. This is the situation where everything a professional musician writes ought to be heard. I realized today that I made a mistake. I didn't clarify the process I had in mind about how professional musicians go about sharing. Here is a very typical way to do that:

1. Write it

2. Record it at a professional studio (Electrical Audio, Steve Albini's studio in Chicago, is $600 a day but add another $700 if you want to work with Steve. Crazy.. This is what pops up when you click on Steve Albini's picture. Abbey Road doesn't even list their prices)

3. Mix it

4. Master it (aka, send it off to an engineer who does the final touches)

5. The label/benefactor then markets it in preperation for the release.

6. Release it.

7. Tour the hell out of it, unless you are Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson.

When a person has unlimited label support  it is easy to do the above, as long as they don't mind being in the studio all the time. There are also guys out there like Randy Rogers who skirt this sort of idea. Randy apparently writes so many songs that I imagine that he doesn't have time to go through this process. I don't know for sure. From what I can gather, he tries out his songs on audiences whenever he writes them. This is really smart. Bonus that he also has a bunch of songs just sitting around and he can pop out at the right moment. 

What other ways are there to share?

Put up a Myspace page. Do a website with a simple mp3 player. You can just ask your friends over and play songs for them (bribery is kosher). You can play for your spouse. Lay the song on a pet. Force it upon everyone with a megaphone on top of a car. You can go to open mics. You can do just about anything. So share if you have songs bursting out of you, dammit!