It's a balance. We need the technique and the understanding and the creativity and none of those need be mutually exclusive. Here is the difference between training and playing: training will help the playing ability, but playing won't train the ability - at least not fully.
There's a reason all atheletes do strength training. It's not because in the course of a game they're ever going to have to stop playing and display their bench pressing prowess; it's because working with weights develops the muscles and stamina they need to play the game. If one's aspriration is to become a distinguished athlete, it's not going to magically just happen by participating in a lot of matches. Even the "naturals" will only get better at the game through training off the field. We are athletes of the fingers. Likewise, you may never even play a piece in F# major on the lute, but practicing scales and exercises and improvising in that key - and every key, as well as "atonal," purely mechanical drills outside a scale structure - will lead to greater control over hand motions you never knew you wanted. Remember the old Karate Kid movie - "wax on, wax off"? That's a reductionist, trite Hollywood summary of technical work, but it's not really that outrageous. To me, those who claim exercises are unimportant are just like those rock/pop musicians who are sure that studying theory will suppress their songwriting creativity. I knew one fellow who showed me the chord changes to a song he wrote. It was in A minor and he so was excited because he used an E major chord in it, even though it had a "wrong" note outside the minor scale. Totally mind blowing, dude! A genius in his own mind. I just nodded and said it sounded nice. The real problem is that in contemporary society, we don't know how to engage balance. It seems that if a player devotes years to achieving mastery of technique, they tend to pick out pieces that display that virtuosity, leading to performances filled with empty, meaningless strings of notes. The music gets lost. Unfortunately, those are the people who get most of the concert bookings and university positions. The result is that technique rather than artisanship becomes the primary metric by which great performances are measured. So, my advice to anyone wishing to get better is to make time for your exercises, but don't forget you're a musician. Also, eat your veggies. Chris -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
