Guitar Craft Debrief
Well, yesterday I (re)started my exposure to Guitar Craft and I think the introduction was much more solid than my first experience. Certainly not to fault Seattle or the circle by any means… I was certainly out of my element on many levels during that frist trip.
I actually found a journal entry that I jotted down while thinking in the car about what I had experienced. Keep in the mind the context of that trip:
- I was bringing Andrew’s ‘Gleb’ guitar, which I had not really played at all.
- I was bringing absolutely no practical usage of NST to the foray.
- I had never really considered GC as a tangible entity – and so I was a tad over-excited and over-expectant.
Suffice it to say, my first trip to Seattle to visit the Seattle house was a bit unsettling.
I remember leaving that meeting both frustrated and happy at the same time. I was glad to have finally experienced a glimpse of what had been inspiring me ever since I first heard about GC in 1990. I was upset that the simplicity of the exercises only made my failure in execution more embarassing.
However, even at that point there was certainly communal compunction – a celebration, so to speak, of suffering and the opportunity it affords us to become who we are – and more so.
The meeting with Curt this last Sunday was entirely different, and yet entirely the same. I had a guitar and a tuning I was more comfortable in, and after having such a wonderful church camp session the week prior I was in a very different place personally than where I had been three years ago.
The exercises took some time – I had a better understanding of Curt’s suggestions than I did last time regarding the right hand, and holding the pick lightly is feeling more natural. I have always felt like playing a guitar with a pick was about as heavy and accurate as playing with a steak knife – fingernails have always felt very comfortable and natural to me. The relationship always seemed closer with the instrument using nails.
Working with a pick, however, does provide a certain level of comfortable distance that allows me to interact with the guitar in a way that is perhaps not so smothering. And I am trying to get used to the idea of playing LOUD.
So exploring these modes of operation was really interesting and it was refreshing to find that I didn’t have self-conscious defeatest attitudes at all during the day. There was actually a point during our C-major circulation where I purposely hit a wrong note (as opposed to the accidents) because I thought the responses to wrong notes were just as interesting as the right ones – they often took the circulation in directions that were not altogether bad.
What I had forgotten, but soon remembered, was that there never seems to be an end to GC – that is, you can focus on the details of the method both horizontally and vertically and never feel like you have exhausted the possibilities. Whether you go for difficulty or endurance, there is always room for growth.
In our case, we seemed to make reasonable headway dealing with challenges and worked our way into a three part song of Curt’s. Jason and I played one part – seemingly simpler but not easy picking exercises for me. Jim and Hank – the veterans, managed their own part without strain.
I would say that I was jealous of their position, but engagement is fun.
At the time, I was becoming fatigued. This was like doing free-throw shots after conditioning – you know that if you could do it when tired you had it down. Lots of misses but I was satisfied with where I was at. And the design of the piece covered up a reasonable part of the flaws in playing, which helped a lot.
I didn’t shut down, which I do remember doing at Seattle years prior.
I think that overall I have to thank the completion of my studies for the differences in my experience. That and bits of clarification and hope in other areas of life, but really the internal process that I have been given through scriptural study are beginning to show their advantages in ways that I am growing thankful for.
I noticed this during the Alexander Technique also and after reading the brief material. St. Paul’s anthropology has similar concerns in regard to the interest that people have in ‘end-gaining’ vs. the ‘means-whereby,’ and this also comes across in the variety and nature of personal concerns and internal focus that Christ finds destructive.
I am intrigued.
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© 2006 Jacob Gorny