Wednesday, February 4, 2015

The Art of Asking



I have recently finished reading Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking . Wow. I am inspired by her book, by her TED talk above, by her insistence that art is truly communication between the artist and the audience in a truly personal manner.

I identify with her street performances, and, although busking is not 'Performance Art' per se, it shares much in common with it. The most striking is the interaction, generally one-on-one with the people who are listening. As I have mentioned in this blog many times, children dance, woman tell us that we made their day, men throw a $5 or $10 into the bucket for a song or two before moving on.

People want to identify with others. They want to know that someone 'gets it'. And although many people walk by without the slightest sign that they even know you are there, you sometimes see them down the street, straining to get a good look at you without your notice....

Now, I am aware that she wrote the book about building your relationship with your audience, but what I took away from the book was thoughts about the spiritual side of art. The communication, the fact that people are willing, very willing, to give and take with the artist, to make an connection. Reflecting life back to the audience, maybe for comfort, maybe for clarification, but always for connection.


Monday, February 2, 2015

Learning



Every single winter I think that I am going to spend great quantities of time, learning more about Music. It does seem that I do that, but often not as planned, and I have many many things that I know I have to learn to progress as a musician.

This winter, I have a written plan (yep, it works). I have several DVDs or online learning opportunities lined up to (hopefully) better my ability to play guitar, add fills to my rhythms, play a little lead during jamming sessions, develop my ear, learn theory and read books on music and music-making. I am most using Homespun and True Fire, but there are many many free sites online also, including Guitar Noise.

Amanda Palmers, the Art of Asking  was the first book I read. I also have in the queue: Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery (download a free pdf file here) and Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson (again, apparently free pdf here). There are others that I will write about as I get to them.

I am also studying Developing Your Musicianship online through Coursera, a free online service that offers college level material for FREE. Amazing.

This along with repertoire work, scale work and FINALLY learning the fret board. It really helps for keeping on track to have it all laid out for me in writing at the beginning of the week, and although I am working 60-90 minutes an evening, because I do a little bit of each item every evening, I am not bored and it does not feel like work.

Happily.

OK, enough here. I better get to the work  :)