Letter to a Young Musician #3

02010-01-01 | Re-Post | 1 comment

Dear Friend,

How should you find your sound?

Well, every hand is different, every nail strikes the strings at a slightly different angle. So, if you play long enough, your sound will eventually emerge somehow. There are rules, but they can all be broken. For example, I file my nails to a shape that is “wrong” according to some experts.

I think there are two elements to “your” sound. The first is the sound-production itself, how your fingers strike the string, where they strike the string. Many guitarists don’t make use of the many different sounds one can coax from the nylon strings and the box. That length of guitar from the fretboard-side of the soundhole all the way to the bridge is rich with different sounds. This can also help with the tuning of the guitar. Sometimes plucking the string in a different position will sound more in tune. (I recently watched a Julian Bream video and was impressed at how he would bend this note in a chord here and that note there… he was always aware of the pitfalls of a fretted instrument and the well-tempered scale)

The second element is what you play. Some guitarists are instantly recognizable, like Carlos Santana for example. Others have a more chameleon-like approach and it takes a while to hear their personality. One is not better than the other. Just different.

Finding your sound is a little bit like finding what you should do for a living, or finding your place in life. It seems to come to us of itself, almost sneaks up in the dead of the night. One day we wake up and from then on we wear our heart in our melodies. Maybe finding your sound has a lot to do with finding yourself and finding yourself comes out of being natural. In the West natural refers to whatever humans have not manipulated, controlled, or despoiled. That’s a dualistic view. It separates humans from nature. In the East, what is natural is what exists according to its true nature. There is no separation, no dualism. That also means that there is no despoiled nature devoid of humans to return to.

What is your nature? What does your nature sound like?

I discovered that at the core of my melody is a slightly melancholy feeling. Even when I am expressing happiness you will find a few notes that speak of longing. But, that is as much a part of me as my crooked right index finger – it turns to the right and because of that turn the nail is perfectly parallel to the string. A flaw may become a pearl in time.

Don’t forget to practice. And keep thinking about what your nature sounds like!

1 Comment

  1. George Roger Shepherd

    This morning I revisited a book I read about 6 years ago named “Uncommon Genius”. It’s a great interesting book about the creative process.

    In “Uncommon Genius”, Denise Shekerjian interviewed 40 different people about their creative processes. The yardstick she used was that they were all winners of the McArthur award.

    In the book she distilled 8 points she found in common with all the winners:

    1) Find your talent

    2) commit to it and make it shine

    3) Don’t be afraid of risk or failure (the game is really never over). Seen the the proper light, risk and failure bring both insight and opportunity.

    4) Find courage by looking to something stronger and better than your puny vulnerable self.

    5) Noo lusting after quick resolutions. Relax. Stay loose

    6) Get to know yourself; understand your needs and the specific conditions
    you favor.

    7) Respect, too, your culture. We can’t, any of us, escape the twentieth (now twenty-first) century. It’s tucked up around our collective chin as snugly and as firmly as the bedsheet.

    8)Then, finally, break free from the seductive pull of book training and research and the million other preparatory steps that could delay for the entire span of a life and immerse yourself in DOING IT NOW.

    Great great great book. I loved these 8 points she makes. The last one is the most important, to be sure.

    I think developing your own sound is mostly a matter of pay… play… and play…

    It’s like Dory in “Finding Nemo”. “Keep seimming, keep swimming, keep swimming…”.

    Reply

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