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Removing The Barriers To Musical Expression
by Jamie Andreas
www.guitarprinciples.com
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There is a perennial debate among musicians
concerning the seeming dichotomy between
"musical expression" and "technique".
Musicians love to argue over which is more
important, to have "chops", or "feel".
Usually, players will argue in favor of the
one they have more of. Even though most
people would, upon sober reflection, grant
that both are important, that will not stop
us from resuming the argument immediately
following said agreement!
Rather than trying to resolve this question,
I would rather investigate something much
more interesting: the relationship between
musical expression and technique.
What Is Technique?
Let us define our terms: what is technique?
Technique is what we do, and how we do it,
to get what we want. This is why there is no
such thing as "correct technique" in any
ultimate sense of the word. Anything is
"correct" if it gets us what we want,
provided it is not going to prevent us from
getting something else we want, or will want
in the future. |
And what is musical expression? It is to
give outward, communicable form to an inner
emotional awareness. It is to take what we
are feeling in response to the music (the
"im-pression" the music has made upon us)
and to make someone else feel it through the
medium of the music itself (to "ex-press"
it). Of course, this presupposes that we ARE
feeling something, just as "technique", the
ability to get what we want, presupposes
that we do want something, and that we know
it when we get it. When we see these truths,
we see that concern with finding which is
more "important" is simply irrelevant to a
real artist. All that is important is
knowing what we want, knowing how to get it,
and knowing when we do get it.
How Much Technique Do We Need?
The requirements of each style of music we
play on the guitar are different. They range
from the modest skills necessary to play
folk guitar, to the advanced skills
necessary to play the classical guitar, and
from the standard licks of the blues player
to the virtuoso techniques of a Vai,
Satriani, or Malmsteen. No matter who we
are, or what style we play, there is one
essential truth regarding the relationship
of our technique to our "feel", our
musicality: our technique must be adequate
to the requirements of our intended
expression, and to the degree that it is, we
will have the power to express ourselves
musically. To the degree that our technique
falls short, we will be limited in our
musical expression. .
If my technique is not adequate, my ability
to express my musical feeling will be
hampered, perhaps destroyed. Like a person
with a severe stutter, it will be hard to
listen to what I say, and especially hard to
simply relax into the feeling and meaning of
my words. If I am an actor with a speech
impediment, it is not going to matter how
much feeling I have for the character I am
playing. The more congruent my technique is
to my musical desires, the more completely
are my desires able to be expressed. In
fact, I will be able to feel even more, to
discover even more of my own response to the
music. To gain the technique we need to
express our musical desires, after not
having it, is like suddenly growing wings
and being able to fly, after merely
crawling, earthbound.
Spirit & Matter
This subject is essentially a form of the
centuries old philosophical debate regarding
spirit and matter. Great thinkers have
postulated everything from the unreality of
matter, with everything being spiritual in
nature, to the strict materialist view that
"matter" is the only reality, and mind,
spirit, and other such fanciful terms are
comforting illusions created, as an
"epiphenomenon", by the whirl of atoms.
Personally, I don't care, because it really
doesn't affect my ability to play the
guitar, one way or the other!
But, I find it useful to think in the
dualistic terms of body and mind, of spirit
and substance. I see them both as expressing
one fundamental reality. Spirit expresses
itself through matter, and that is how it
communicates itself to the human mind. The
vehicle or form through which spirit
expresses itself we call a "body", such as a
"governmental body", which conveys the will
and spirit of a people in political and
social terms, or the term we use to speak of
an artists collected work, "a body of work"
-that body of work expressing the spirit of
the artist.. When it comes to playing music,
"technique" is the body with which we
express the will of our spirit. And just as
our physical body can be healthy or
handicapped, so can our guitar technique.
Is it possible to have good technique and
little or no "feel"? Yes, or course. Just
because the body exists does not mean it is
being used to express spirit. There are many
people walking around in bodies who are not
feeling very much or expressing very much.
This zombie approach to life can be applied
to music as well; people can develop monster
chops without having anything musical to
say. People can learn to write voluminously,
or speak rapidly and clearly, and even in a
sophisticated manner, without actually
having something to say (and many people do
just that!). And there will always be
audience members happy to clap
enthusiastically for such musical acrobats,
but I have never been one of them.
However, the opposite is not true, it is not
possible to express musical feeling without
technique adequate to the task. We may
perhaps have the feeling inside, but we
cannot give it outward form, so that it is
usable and able to be received by someone
else.
The Door Is Open
This is why my teaching work is concerned
primarily with physical technique as opposed
to musical expression. There is no point in
dwelling on the musical aspects of someone's
playing when they are not even able to
physically produce the notes! Once someone
begins to experience effortless playing,
once the physical barriers have been
removed, the spirit can flow, the spirit can
expand, and most often does. Then, once the
music has been given wings, it is time to
talk about how perhaps to soar even higher.
With our first few publications "The
Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar"
and "The Path", GuitarPrinciples opened the
door for anyone to become a guitar player.
In those publications, the root causes of
the factors that prevent people from
acquiring playing skill, and instead instill
deep seated playing problems in students,
have been fully analyzed, and the solutions
to those problems has been given. Anyone can
now learn to play in a basic functioning
manner as a guitarist, without developing
chronic disabilities that will prevent
continuous growth. |
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Copyright 2005
Jamie Andreas. All
rights reserved.
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