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The fool in me carried away by the Siren
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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 The fool in me carried away by the Siren
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How rewarding it is when you stay in the exercise, increasingly reducing all superfluous action and nervous engagement until you peeled out the elixir from the onion layers of execution waste. And when there, at the core of effective technique, how you flow away in dexterity and perfect touch; so dreamlike!
With the old hand that you are as a seeker of technical efficiency, reaching to such reduced necessity so much better and quicker than decades ago.
However, I can´t resist galloping away with that perfected state of execution. Carried away by the musicality of seamlessness, and zap, there you go, enjoying produced sound instead of being efficient with improving yourself.
As a sucker for sonics, unable to resist the beauty that ermeges from the enchanting wonder of a guitar.
And that while staying at the perfected exercise would not even being bothering to me or anything. In fact it is such a pleasure to then run accross the strings like a lemur through tree tops.
Only that straying away with the fluency into musical sequence is even more of an entrapping pleasure. It is that you say to yourself like: "Just for a minute! Will be back right away."
And so I find myself over and over again digressed into entertaining myself. Not for "a minute", but rather for 95% or more of the guitar time.
Hard to imagine where I would be if only able to control myself and stick to fluent exercising for at least a little bit more of the practising time.
On the one hand being persistant enough to keep fighting against a physical issue since years now; far from giving up and all in all rather succesfully sticking to overcoming it ...
On the other hand lacking the discipline of not letting myself being carried away by sonic and musical temptation. It is downright compulsive.
Just cannot withstand to play away.
Anybody else here familiar with the lovely Siren that lures you away to the shore of watered down progress?
With the beauty of the instrument being too much for you to resist it for even just some minutes?
Be embraced then, brother in crime and lover of irresistable sonic muse.
Ruphus
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Date Jun. 27 2014 10:25:41
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Hi David,
Provided that in your example there is some new technique / way of execution involved, then that is an overall good way to procede.
You concentrate on something, zoom into it, improving dexterity ( and hopefully will not reduce the learning effect afterwards by playing something with lesser refined routines from before ).
In my bad example ( they way I typically do) I would be riding those two bars for only a short while. Then, attracted by the nice new sound, I would break out, improvising some kind of music piece of it and finally throwing over board the new motoric path while making music, basically with old executing routines. Hence, retarding new achievements, or at least hindering their imprint / establishing.
Ruphus
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Date Jun. 28 2014 17:39:23
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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I posted some on AG forum, but never on the foro.
Always disliked demonstrating to thirds ( no matter what subject, including those where teachers would keep asking me as preferred student), and since the time when I decided to unroll everything from scratch I don´t feel at all like playing for anyone.
In fact I don´t even aim at making music. My goal being to tidy up motorics. It´s just that the beauty of the instrument drags me into fiddling around all the time.
With all that I guess you could be liking the sounds. Neighbours in the diverse places did at least, and friends anyway. ( I really am concerned about bothering others and try to be considerate, but specially in summer you can´t avoid being heard by close environment.)
Maybe 2 years ago, concerned about the leakage in these miserable buildings, I asked the guy in the house behind mine wether he could be disturbed with my guitar playing until late night or even until morning hours.
The man rather a bit of the rough kind surprised me with: "In the opposite, when I wake up I love hearing that wonderful sound."
And in the faster times before the technical revision, I received respect by conservatory players and pros, had invitations to make a record or play before VIPs like the Scorpions for instance ( which I all declined).
Me is a closet player.
Anyway, don´t want to sound as if I was the shizznizz ( specially not now, with completely shrinked repertoir and yet some years of repair work before me), while being just a fakemenco / universal dilettant, but in terms of touch I suppose there are not too many players that could be urged to looking down on me.
And why should they want to, unless it being Ricardo who seems a bit too spoiled by kind fellow members who don´t hear the difference between the greats and him whom they consider match.
Ruphus
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Date Jul. 1 2014 14:46:12
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Bulerias2005
Posts: 632
Joined: Jul. 10 2010
From: Minneapolis, MN
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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I am confused not necessarily by your prose, Ruphus, but by your main point. What is the difference between "galloping away with that perfected state of execution" and "being efficient with improving yourself"? What are exercises, anyway?
I know this isn't necessarily the most popular viewpoint, but I think most exercises are BS. Think about it for a second. Every single method book, filled to the brim with seemingly-useful exercises, was devised by a technically proficient guitarist who was taught using a different methodology which, by his estimation, the exercises in the books can approximate and thereby bring about technical proficiency. But how useful is that, really?
People are surprised when I say I have never once done picado exercises. The ONLY exercises I have ever done, divorced from a piece of music, are the Giuiliani arpeggios, and even those were of minimal use to me (but, BTW, arpeggios are massively helpful in improving picado technique).
The best way to practice is through music, or through a book like the Carcassi method, which doesn't focus on exercises as much as progressively-challenging, technique-oriented musical vignettes. Giving these sort of pieces to people who are starting out will keep their attention much more effectively than mindless exercises (which, if they focus on one particular technique, can result in hand injury if repeated excessively). I don't know. Speaking purely from personal experience -- both for myself as a guitarist and for my students -- exercises that are removed from musical context are rarely if ever useful.
_____________________________
Daniel Volovets
Jazz, Classical, Flamenco, & Latin-American Guitar
http://www.danielvolovets.com/
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Date Jul. 1 2014 18:02:33
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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"Efficiency" means to gain max at minimum efforts.
I started out with the etxreme opposite. Nothing but playing.
Admittedly, yet accidentally, largely technically correct / ergonomically at first. Later on I handicapped myslef however by going a basically other route, trying to copy some celebrity, thinking his awkward posture was the way to go
I find it interesting how you seem to not have noticed that one can drag basic misconception through a hole career. Possibly shoving a huge repertoire of music around and with it still technical misconceptions that will needlessly hamper, dramatically reducing the time / output ratio and seamlessness, and completely prevent certain individual skills.
Information is a highly efficient fuel to fill ones imagination with, and latest insights on physiology and neurology allow for corresponding progress.
If on the other hand detailed and accuarte knowledge was so useless, how have I then been able to produce lucky campers partially in only a few minutes. Like e.g. with a guitarist who was already 14 years or so gigging and who called me up days after I had made him aware about something on levering, which now suddenly allowed him a drastically improved posture and playing.
( Not all know-how can be realized that quickly, but the efficiency of well stuffed imagination is always extreme compared to more or less random approach and technically possible counter production.)
When preconditions are perfect, like when you are inspired by seamless players, or yourself being one of the talents that will execute economically by chance, then you might be doing pretty well without the little help through analytics.
But when there is no such perfect ideal in reach, knwoing why and how things happen is invaluable.
For, in all cases, the quality of imagination / anticipation makes for the most relevant point.
If projection about an execution is failed ( against physiology / ergonomics) you may execute a ttechnique in question for a million times and either progress very little, not at all, or even develop blockade,
and in the opposite:
If projection is perfect, progress is a blink / efficiency at max.
Quoting myself for lazyness:
quote:
Modern didactics should know that success is all about correct imagination before actual action.
This insight also being behind todays mental training of for instance top athletes. Those are being trained to invision the action beforehand as detailed as possible.
F1 pilots for instance drive through the course in mind, and such precisely at that that they reach the envisioned finish in mind, accurately down to milli seconds of the real thing.
From there, I believe that in the future proficiency like learning an instrument should become considerably different and more efficiently from today.
Aside of possible physical methods like eventual transfers of informative bearers, or mechanical tools etc., which shall remain unconsidered here, projectionist means of imagination will advance considerably, showing great effect on learners.
This does not mean that you couldn´t have great didactics with max playing at min exercising, provided details / inspiration are perfect.
I personally, due to repairing, however do need exercising. Other I cannot remove established ineffciencies / malfunctions. Unrolling from scratch / reprogramming can only be done by exercising.
Ruphus
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Date Jul. 1 2014 21:19:42
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Is it really not to be understood or are you just pulling my leg?
The above was not about musical expression, but about correctly executed technique.
You know, in the sense of not engaging muscles that are not being needed, not introducing superfluous angles, not firing impulses vainly in physiologically blocked situations, etc.
So, imagine you had focused on everything and were now executing ergonomically efficient. ( Which besides feels fantastic!)
And all you that is left to do is to keep executing that way for a while, so that the not yet established routine may be imprinted in your grey cells.
However, if you for whatever reason will execute for only a short moment, and then re-introduce your habitual, dysfunctional way of executing this technique ... the ergomomical way of doing it will not replace the wrong routine.
( Hence, you are then being counter productive to the correction.)
If it may still not be understood, someone please help me with getting it accross per Mandarin Chinese or maybe in Suahili.
And should I have been made to type this just for giggles, lightning shall strike you on the loo. :O/
Ruphus
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Date Jul. 2 2014 8:25:32
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Bulerias2005
Posts: 632
Joined: Jul. 10 2010
From: Minneapolis, MN
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Is it really not to be understood or are you just pulling my leg?
The above was not about musical expression, but about correctly executed technique.
You know, in the sense of not engaging muscles that are not being needed, not introducing superfluous angles, not firing impulses vainly in physiologically blocked situations, etc.
So, imagine you had focused on everything and were now executing ergonomically efficient. ( Which besides feels fantastic!)
And all you that is left to do is to keep executing that way for a while, so that the not yet established routine may be imprinted in your grey cells.
However, if you for whatever reason will execute for only a short moment, and then re-introduce your habitual, dysfunctional way of executing this technique ... the ergomomical way of doing it will not replace the wrong routine.
( Hence, you are then being counter productive to the correction.)
If it may still not be understood, someone please help me with getting it accross per Mandarin Chinese or maybe in Suahili.
And should I have been made to type this just for giggles, lightning shall strike you on the loo. :O/
Ruphus
Your scenario assumes that one already has a "habitual, dysfunctional way of executing" technique, which seems to imply that when one's focus is not squarely on technique (and, perhaps, like I reasonably assumed you were trying to say, musical expression), 'perfect' technique falls by the wayside. This is what's confusing to me. Note that you yourself brought up "being carried away by sonic and musical temptation"... how is it unreasonable to assume that you were referring to a more expressive way of playing?
There's no need to translate your post to Mandarin Chinese, but English would be fine (or perhaps Russian?  )
_____________________________
Daniel Volovets
Jazz, Classical, Flamenco, & Latin-American Guitar
http://www.danielvolovets.com/
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Date Jul. 2 2014 23:17:44
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: The fool in me carried away by t... (in reply to Ruphus)
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Your postings show that you feel threatend by the eventualiyt that any or some of your understandings could be turning out questionable.
Instead of trying to insult me with bits like that my language was not English*, I would had preferred if you explained what you are concerned about. (* Maybe your are not too firm with it, yet?)
To the foolish premisse of `just do like you feel suits best´:
I come form a physical art where -more than in any other discipline- there is shown how todays civilisatory individual has been alienated from natural motorics. ( And how large-scaled it is to lead the average person back to natural / physicallly conclusive coordination of his body.)
But one does not need to be a specialist for to have taken notion of reports about todays youth´s physical clumsiness as consequence of lacking playgrounds / routines of lives on the couch, etc.
Assumption in the way of that students would just execute ergonomically if only shown a technique, makes me wonder whether we live in the same world. Because rather common is an awkward approach with way too many engagements of muscle aparatus, blockage, angles and strain.
And how could it not with youngsters who meanwhile don´t only fail with simple body control like walking, balancing etc., but recently are even being reported as awkward with hand writing.
In the same time we don´t need to go into todays extremes, and will find ergonomical lacking already with preceding generations. A majority of guitar players who practise since decades, all in all and unfortunately highly inefficiently. After all those years still not fluent, hasting, missing notes, clamping barrés, etc. ( Dominated by the instrument, instead of the opposite way around.)
This while you can have a player on concert level after only a short time, like say 2 to 3 years ( provided his passionate engagement, naturally).
As I mentioned above, in contrast you can have the case with talented individuals who will be quite efficient / ergonomical innately.
You can also have the case of someone, regardless of talent, inspired to functional progress by the seamlessness of his surrounding. Like lucky people who may learn in Gitano communities, or otherwise musical families.
Such examples may not need to have their imagination built up with detailed information about economical execution, as they are being inspired by good example already ( finding efficiency unconsciously through mirroring).
For the vast rest of guitar aficionados however, chances are more than not of starting out with routines of minor body control.
And thus it would be a gift to them to be provided with either inspiring example, as much of detail on ergonomics as possible, or even both.
I have given examples above that show once again how important useful anticipation is to the quality of execution ( in all disciplines).
I don´t know why anyone would doubt it, or wanting to assume that everyone´s random posture and idle motorics were to be ergonomical.
Truth is that what might be feeling most comfortable right now at random state, might well be your future obstacle in playing an instrument.
What is up with that kind of silly rejection of simple wordly facts?
Do you want your playing career to have been optimally unrolled in the aftermath? Do you feel threatend by the hypothetical possibility that it could have been more efficient?
Or are you of the talents that luckily and innately progressed with good efforts-to-results-ratio, and now think such would be common if only students were let executing however they feel right at a given moment?
Why then are all those top athletes being trained and that with increasing focus on imagination of how to unroll?
Why can guys like Prof. Chen spill out guitar prodigies in a row?
All worthless bits, only because of the defending of your misunderstanding belly button?
If it can´t even be agreed on such basic and obvious circumstances, how could we ever build a dog kennel together? 
( Guess that would turn out an aquarium or so.)
Ruphus
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Date Jul. 3 2014 11:21:21
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