The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

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).

The following is from BB King's Autobiography. I think it is pretty interesting. Perhaps this is why so many men like to play the instrument...
 
“…I can’t sit still. My eyes dart from here and there, only to land on the one object that fascinates me most: Reverend’s Guitar. It leans against the pulpit and, man, it’s beautiful. The body is hollow wood with a cord that plugs into the wall. It’s rounded shape and lovely curves remind me of the body of a beautiful girl. I want to run up and put my arms around the guitar, but I don’t dare. I don’t know how to play... Mama says reverend is coming over to visit… I also eye the guitar, laying on the bed like a girl waiting to be touched. While the adults are busy talking, I ease over to the bed. While they’re not looking, I reach over and, oh-so-carefully, touch the wood of the guitar. Just sorta gently stroke her. Touch her strings to see how they feel against my fingers. Feels good. Feels like magic. I wonder: How do you get her to make those sounds? How do you get her to sing? ‘Go ahead and pick it up.’ It’s the voice of the reverend. ‘The guitar,’ says reverend, ‘is a precious instrument. It’s another way to express god’s love.’ Well, brother, that’s what I wanted at age seven. Wanted to express everything the reverend was expressing.”

I want to re-iterate a thought about music theory that I feel is neccesary to say at least a thousand times.  I don't believe that any person out there should learn it if doing so keeps them away from their creativity or from their enjoyment of playing music.  Knowing music theory doesn't make a person more creative neccesarily. For the people who created their own style of playing guitar, free of studying the nuts and bolts of music, I believe it can be dangerous. 

In it's defense, music theory helps a person make sense of music, especially if they are the type to do more exploration of their instrument.  Like, learning jazz chords on the guitar for fun.  Music theory helps solve problems. It can help one make sense of what they are hearing. It enables people to be smarter and better informed about music in general. But other than that, what?  Does knowing a scale mean "Ahhh finally! I can play lead guitar!" Nope.  I disagree. 

I believe that music theory does not neccesarily enable someone to be creative or, for that matter, to enjoy it more.

Instead, I believe that it's a person's ability to be open to listenening which enables them to create music.  The ear isn't affected one bit by music theory.  The ear has the ability to hear something that can't be defined.  I felt very sorry for the music theorists I knew in grad school who couldn't sit through a symphony without analyizing it. Isn't enjoyment more important?  If you wrote a song and you didn't know a shred of music theory, isn't the enjoyment of seeing your creativity bloom free of anybody else's rules make it worth it? I hope so!

Just ignore the rules. The rules are not worth learning for the moment.  The inevitable walls that we come to bang our heads on in frustration can be broken down with music theory, later.  For now, just create.