The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

I've kept up with this humble blog for more than two years now. My original purpose was, quite frankly, to score higher results on the Google machine for Austin guitar lessons. Blogging about guitar exclusively is fun, but the concept of guitar is just so, well... limited. Just because guitar is fun to play doesn't really mean I want to spend this entire blog talking about it, anymore. Besides, I'd rather have mystery than mastery. Mastery is boring as hell.

I have been thinking about how blogs can sometimes spark community participation. It's just one of many ways to getting a free exchange of ideas, or testing out theories and getting feedback. It's always good to explore ideas or even hobbies that are new to us, and they can help us have a more complete education with guitar too. If you have taken any lessons with me, you probably already know that I have some intense interests outside of guitar. I don't mind sharing many of my interests because I've found that the more I open up and talk about them in lessons, the more solid of a relationship I get with the people I teach. Lessons are mostly about guitar, but it seems to me that sharing what I am up to outside of guitar has only been a good thing. That's the direction I will go with this blog now.

I will not be forgetting about guitar on this blog. Instead, I am going to experiment by sharing the stuff that I gravitate to in addition to thoughts on music and guitar. I may throw ideas around. I may test out tidbits of thoughts here and there. I may share the results of my experiments to be more productive. I may just share things that are just intensely creative. I can't think of a reason not to share really cool stuff that other people out there are doing, especially if they are the unsung creative types. This is not about Google rankings anymore. The game has changed, and so have I.

In the future, expect more variety with the same amount of grammatical errors. I don't care. Ideas are pretty important even if my grammar sucks. You don't have to pitch in, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Tell me loud and clear!

Dealing with jerks can be infuriating, especially when you commit to playing music with them. It can be a huge drag sometimes when one person is extremely negative. It's as if they aren't happy playing music unless everyone around them is unhappy, or at least on their level. We all want to have people around us who share our values, so the cliche "Misery loves company" is cliche for a reason. Sometimes, personality conflicts can sour the entire experience of playing music with others.

It's not worth the time and energy. It's not worth it to spend time afterwords thinking about how much someone sucks as a human being. Nobody wants a boss who acts like a child. Nobody wants a friend who won't listen to them. Why should it be any different when playing music with others? Sometimes, even though some people don't know any better, they'll ruin the entire experience of playing music.

"Why does that turd have to be such a turd?!?"

Music is supposed to be fun. If the previous question is asked, it might be more fun to play with someone else.

This is a situation that professional musicians sometimes find themselves in. It's a rush to share their new songs.
 
At first glance, this doesn't seem like a bad thing. Yay! Show and tell! "Dude- check this song out!" After all, the act of creating, to paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, is just plain good for us. Don't get me wrong either. I like to encourage just about everyone I know to create something, anything. It just feels good. Sharing the contents of our creative work is life affirming, tends to build confidence, and allows us to begin to understand that there are people out there who appreciate our work even if we don't necessarily know them. The mere act of creation creates space for more creativity. Confidence besets confidence.
 
The flip side is that the rush to share has a strange consequence: The musician in a rush to share never allows his/her song to take traction and stand the test of time.
 
Creativity is everything to me. Being in a rush to share means that no work has time to marinate in solitary peace. Paul McCartney's "yesterdays" took two years (!) To write, but it's a classic. Letting a song sit and rest, to find itself even if it means it's two years in the making, means that not only will a person find out for sure if it will stand the test of time, it will also give the song a chance to be even more of an extension of the songwriter. When a song stands the test of time in my world, then I am positive that I want to share it. My personal dilemma has been how to wait for the right moments to share. When it's ready, it's ready, and it should be shared. Sometimes songs, poems, art, whatever, just needs time for it to fully bloom. Sometimes not. They can come like lightning too (Brian Wilson's song "God Only Knows" was written in seven minutes).
 
If you need to write a song, do it! Don't hesitate. Ditto with sharing. Especially if you need to play! But if you have spent years writing songs, creating art, or writing poems, then perhaps being more selective can allow songs to last for a long long time.

If there was only one practice, one routine, that would make us extraordinarily productive in any pursuit (especially creativity), it'd be Julia Cameron's suggestion that we create at least a little something every day. I like to call it the the 75-five idea. She dedicates three simple pages of gobbledygook in the morning. She writes even if she doesn't feel like it, and she gets stuff done.

What difficult project wouldn't be solved if a simple five minutes per day, every day, would be dedicated to it? Your first poem? Novel? Painting? Playing a song by Beatles? What would remain unsolved? What possibly couldn't be accomplished?

In my opinion, absolutely no problem is immune. It may take a lifetime, or even several people's lifetimes, but eventually it will be finished.

Guitar is an interesting pursuit. If a person has any tension in the body, as a result of habit or whatnot, it eventually comes under scrutiny because it will hold them back from playing something they want to play. It's pretty normal to begin playing guitar with tension where it doesn't need to be. After all, we practically twist our wrists to fit around the neck of the guitar. It scares the willy-nilly out of me to see students play in a way that is bad for their bodies (as a side note, beware of blanket advice such as "Your thumb needs to be directly behind the neck of the guitar, at all times." It might not be the best for you).

There are times where tension is the result of bad technique. What if you have a solid technical ability and the tension is still there? The culprit might be even more invisible. I've noticed that there is a common thing that all guitarists will do if they are playing a passage that stretches their ability: They will twist and move their mouth and jaw muscles. If this sounds familiar, then try the following.

1. Get a mirror and practice in front of it for at least two weeks.

2. Observe your mouth (don't try to change it).

If your mouth moves any small little bit, you would do yourself a big favor by merely observing it. Try not to clamp down on your teeth. Try not to grind them! Eventually, and through observation of this problem, you can rid your body of another bit of tension that is unneeded.

If you are interested in a bit of further reading, check out this article on mandible jaw syndrome.

It's not often that we hear about a guitarist who developed their musicality and technical ability in complete solitary confinement. It is really difficult for someone to do this. This means that they heard a song and learned to play it all on their own, without internet lessons (let alone private lessons), tabs, outside influence, or anything else. It's also my opinion that few are able to learn guitar or music without thinking about performance from day one. We play for ourselves, our friends, teachers, colleagues, and even people we get drunk with (if you drink and play guitar). Performing makes people nervous, too. You can't just ask the audience to not look at you! It's part of the deal. You play, the audience watches.

A microcosm of this is the guitar lesson. You play, your teacher watches. It's obvious that the teacher can overtly distort and harm a student's ability to handle an audience, even if the audience is just one person. This can be the case much of the time with classical music education. I have to restrain myself when talking about how classical music teachers approach pedagogy; I can rant for hours. My view is that classical music has been taught primarily by human beings who are trying too hard to perform like perfect musical robots. I feel that many ignore the humanity of their student's playing so that they can "measure up" to "all the others." Imagine learning under this oppressive atmosphere! It's not fun! I did it learning viola, and I despised my teacher for it!*

For this reason (among others), it takes time for brand new students to trust teachers, especially music teachers. The idea that the teacher is sort of the emissary for the audience makes the student probably extra nervous. So how do we, as teachers, have more compassion for the people we are helping? In my own teaching work, I have erred on the side of giving my complete attention and kind eyes to each student who I'm working with. I give my attention to them with my eyes primarily. Until recently, I never thought that this might not be good for everyone. It may not build trust or technique as fast as I would want it to. It might make some people more nervous.

I am going to experiment with not looking (staring?) at students as they play for the next couple of weeks, and see if there are any results. I have a feeling that there are certain people who will thrive with this situation, and there are others who would prefer the eye contact. We'll see.

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*If you study classical music with someone who is human and is a great person, then make a point to keep your relationship with that person very strong. I feel strongly that Nick Goluses at the Eastman School of Music is one of the few teachers out there that actively cares about his students, and helps them develop both their humanity as well as their musicianship.

I estimate the percentage rate for him actually reading it to be about 2.3%. I had to do it though (with broken sentences and bad handwriting apparently as well).