The “HOW” vs. the “WHAT”. Remembering What Matters in Music
Like most musicians and songwriters, I’ve chased after ghosts: grasped at that far-off, elusive thing that all my heroes seemed to have. How the hell do they do it!? Naturally, I went after the particulars. I thought: “maybe if I could just learn to play that one slide in that one lick in that one song Clarence White played, I’d be a step closer.” Of course all those little details can be fun and important stuff to study, but not if they completely distract us away from solid, heartfelt delivery.
“A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world; it depends on your imagination” -Thelonius Monk
My primary message to all my students (and myself) ultimately comes down to this: eat the meal, not the menu. Or as fans of Zen like to say: “Pointing at the moon is not the moon”. To me, it’s not really about the material, style or even the genre. Ever. Bach Shmack. Bluegrass Shmoograss. Jazz? zzzzzz. It’s all music. If we get too caught up with what it is, then we can’t be attentive to what it can do. That is to say, how the music is connecting with the listener; especially when that listener is you. It is like being in love with how cool the words “I love you” sound when spoken in Portuguese or with a southern accent, but not feeling the actual love itself. Sure, “grammar”, vocabulary and structure are important. But what’s the use of a cool language if you are not successfully convincing your audience, and more importantly yourself, that you actually mean what you say! I’d venture to guess that most people value sincerity, passion and a desire to connect over a mastery of syntax. In order to shift our focus from the “what” back to the “how”, I think we need to remember to focus on what is happening when we’re not playing. What’s happening in the spaces? I’ll be exploring this concept further next week in part two of my series on playing with rests and silence in music. Stay tuned.
Tags: bluegrass, jazz, mandolin, music philosophy, Music practice, Silence in Music, stop noodling, tao, thelonius monk