Friday, September 03, 2004
Stress
Gnyaaahh!!!! It's so frustrating trying to get new musical projects off the ground! People always tell me what a one-in-a-million lucky shot it is to be in a band, but they don’t know the half of it. It's not just whatever drives you to want to be in a band (playing live, expressing yourself musically, meeting drunk, impressionable women, whatever), it's finding other people who a) are happy with you being in the band b) you are happy being in a band with. And if - IF - you can get past these two hurdles, well that's where your troubles really begin. Finding time to get all these people in the same room together more than once every blue moon is proving extremely troublesome. The real sucker punch is when you "feel" the right vibes, or latch onto something that makes you think "Yes! I want this to happen! I'm prepared to go without sleep/cash/food/thanks to get material written, rehearsed, recorded and gigged" - that's when my life always starts to get tricky. And putting up with rehearsals/writing/jam sessions that get cancelled at the last minute is the killer. I'm on my second gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, hope-smothering, tear-jerking cancellation this week. I suppose the more something means to you, the bigger deal you make of it.
I'm enjoying giving guitar lessons at the moment. I've started giving them again after a ten year absence - I didn't have the patience back then to deal with 12yr olds who only wanted to be able to play *whatever-song-was-in-the-charts-at-the-time* without actually wanting to learn about the guitar and music in general. I teach guitar as a martial art, with an emphasis upon certain truisms and philosophies that seem to get strangely overlooked by most music students. Most people seem really interested in this approach, and the best part of it is that it's not just beginners and novices that have signed up, I've had some experienced guitarists come to see how they can expand their ideas and techniques, too. As far as being "a teacher" goes, that pretty much makes my day. It's good for me to brush up on my theory too, I usually learn as much from the student as they do from me. A friend suggested to me that I consider giving performance coaching too, something I've done in the past but never really pushed any further than helping out the bands I've been in, or have been mates with. Half the time all it takes is an objective point of view to really help a band improve their "act", or even help them gain confidence in what they are doing. And I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say that I know what I'm talking about when I say that not enough people equate "gig" with "performance".
Maybe all this teaching is borne of frustration at not being able to actually rehearse enough to gig enough to record enough?
From "The Art of War" - "If you sit by the edge of the river for long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float past you."
Roughly translated: "Good things come to those who have the sheer bloody-mindedness and patience to shut up, sit tight and wait."
I'm enjoying giving guitar lessons at the moment. I've started giving them again after a ten year absence - I didn't have the patience back then to deal with 12yr olds who only wanted to be able to play *whatever-song-was-in-the-charts-at-the-time* without actually wanting to learn about the guitar and music in general. I teach guitar as a martial art, with an emphasis upon certain truisms and philosophies that seem to get strangely overlooked by most music students. Most people seem really interested in this approach, and the best part of it is that it's not just beginners and novices that have signed up, I've had some experienced guitarists come to see how they can expand their ideas and techniques, too. As far as being "a teacher" goes, that pretty much makes my day. It's good for me to brush up on my theory too, I usually learn as much from the student as they do from me. A friend suggested to me that I consider giving performance coaching too, something I've done in the past but never really pushed any further than helping out the bands I've been in, or have been mates with. Half the time all it takes is an objective point of view to really help a band improve their "act", or even help them gain confidence in what they are doing. And I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say that I know what I'm talking about when I say that not enough people equate "gig" with "performance".
Maybe all this teaching is borne of frustration at not being able to actually rehearse enough to gig enough to record enough?
From "The Art of War" - "If you sit by the edge of the river for long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float past you."
Roughly translated: "Good things come to those who have the sheer bloody-mindedness and patience to shut up, sit tight and wait."
# posted by AK @ 17:09 
