I have a friend who took private lessons from Andy Statman and he shared some of his lesson experiences with me. One thing Andy said that stuck out in my mind was you need to really learn one thing completely. Don't dabble in bluegrass, learn a little swing, switch to choro, go explore jazz, then learn some more bluegrass. Pick one and master that language. Then all those other languages will make sense. If you never master the one thing, you'll never acquire the understanding you need to really speak in any of the languages. Your playing will have no depth.
Being lazy and a slow learner, I haven't learned Monroe yet. There's some tunes/breaks I've learned note for note. There's some tunes/breaks I get a sense of and just wing it. The more you learn note for note, the easier it gets to wing it. And the stuff you can't play (the limitations you run into), you find another way to make something that fits into the feeling of the tune. On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 7:06 PM, mistertaterbug <[email protected]> wrote: > > Fo'teen, > You ask a valid question...several actually. In my opinion the answer > would be yes, try. Getting the general gist seems to leave me wanting > more. I don't really think it's possible to understand what's being > listened to with only getting the gist of it. One thing that occurs in > the pursuit of understanding another's style is that the ears change > over time, you become educated on what you're hearing and therefore > new things "occur" to one's musical mind that simply were not there > before because there was not enough education to understand them. My > opinion, of course. > > Brian presents an interesting point about acquiring one's own nuances. > David Grisman says that he used to try and play like Monroe in the > early days, but the more he tried, the more his own thing emerged. > Who's to say why "dawg" music was born or whether it had anything to > do with Grisman's pursuit of Monroe. I think it probably had more to > do with David doing a whole lot of mandolin playing and his muse > speaking the loudest. There is also a lot of evidence that even Monroe > played sounds and arrangements he heard being played by others. > > John Hartford used to say that he believed that a person's style is > based on that person's limitations, that no one can play what they > actually hear inside them. I would suggest taking that idea a step > further and say that many times personal limitations are self-imposed. > Not always, sure, but that would also take into consideration Brian's > lazy streak(and my own). I know a number of musicians who openly admit > to not being able to play at the level they know they could if they > would just focus and work on it, yours truly included. > > I'm rambling on, so I'll get back to the point as I understand it. > Yes, it is good to seek the nuances, to believe in something and > follow it. Doing the work to learn only makes one a better player and > opens other doors to personal discovery. Our own sounds will emerge no > matter how hard we try to sound like someone else. > > Taterhead > On Nov 3, 2:22 pm, 14strings <[email protected]> wrote: >> Does anybody here get bit by the guitar flatpicking bug once in a >> while? >> >> I'm presently on one such binge now. It's fun to jump ship once in a >> while and makes coming back the mandolin fresh. >> >> Anyway I was watching Norman Blake's first Homespun guitar video and >> he said something that I've heard before but the way he said it made >> it finally sink in. He said, and I paraphrase "I want you to get the >> idea of what I'm doing but I want you to do it your own way this way >> you'll play the best of what YOU have to offer" >> >> In other words it's really difficult to get the EXACT nuance of >> someone elses playing and should we even try? Or should we get the >> general gist of it and play what comes naturally to us? > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
