Re: Creativity and Technique

[Paolo Valladolid <pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu>]

> >Too much
> >technique shifts the art away from expression.  Insufficient technique
> >prevents the art from being realized.
> 
> right.

I partially disagree.  What shifts one's art away from expression is
_not_ "too much technique". It is the over-reliance on habits.  Playing
the blues box is a habit for some players.  Playing a favorite
3-octave harmonic minor scale pattern is a habit for others. Playing
a favorite diminished arpeggio up and down the fretboard is a habit
for yet others. And so on.

A major component of self-expression is being in control over one's
habits rather than being controlled by them.

A possible analogy is a conversation.  I notice that when I am genuinely
interested in the conversation, I participate in a way that is, for
lack of a better term, "non-rehearsed".  When I am getting bored, I
begin to act in a rehearsed manner, which is smiling and nodding.
This is a habit I have.

[Matthias's excellent comments on limited technique forming a language
deleted]

Paolo Valladolid
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
|Moderator of Digital Guitar Digest, an Internet mailing list   |\ 
|for Music Technology and Stringed Instruments                  | \
 ----------------------------------------------------------------  |
\ finger pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu for more info             \ |
 \ http://waynesworld.ucsd.edu/DigitalGuitar/home.html            \| 
  -----------------------------------------------------------------