Amateur...

It sure ain't the shallow end..

i find that dark chocolate helps

I want to read it, but after a few sentences my eyes glaze over,
I can't focus on the text, and my mind wanders.
then I click on another topic or area of the forum.

does this make me a dummy, or just a guy with ADD?

Jeff(bigtikidude)

I'm with you Mr Snyder

Tim O
oestmann guitar

tunes

clips

DannySnyder
So my thoughts....judging by the stream of conscious nature, and the fact that Seamoor admits to having over 2000 of these recordings, I have to think that what he's doing is not so much expressing himself creatively as much as tapping into his inner consciousness by creating almost a dream state for himself. A form of meditation if you will, but instead of focusing on breath or mantra, it's the repeating guitar chord pattern. And to keep his mind free from thought he lets the notes bubble out of him. I found myself drawn into a relaxed state as well - and I mean that in a good way.

How'm I doing Seamoor?

That is just about exactly right. A form of contemplation around a single rhythmic pattern of chord changes. Again, my objective is not the production of something that could be packaged to please the entertainment jones of others--it has to do with facilitating certain brain states during 'free association' sessions. Sometimes something interesting bubbles up, sometimes not. A neurologist told me a long time ago that the best way to keep your brain young is to learn a new musical instrument--that by forcing your brain to learn new motor skills, you are causing the tissues of the corpus callosum to actually thicken. This thickening of the corpus callosum is a natural mitigation of the brain declines that lead to dementia and alzheimers. When I play/compose, I am trying to do something my brain has never done before--and to stay in THAT place. I never go back to pick over the material to say, I can use this, I reject that, now, let me write a B section to go here, and add a bridge--because, the experiment that I began, many years ago, was to document the answer to the question--what would happen if I never play the same thing twice on the guitar, but always force myself to play something that I have never played before?

The only connection to Treasure of the Sierra Madre is that one of the 'tricks' I use to conjure up something new to work on is to think about certain movie moments with which I am familiar and try to express the feeling tone I get thinking about the scene. That's because this style of improvization over a fixed rhythic pattern tends to produce more ambient results than structured tunes, so it reminds me more of movie soundtracks, with motifs, leitmotifs and their variations. I actually took the idea from Bill Frizzell.

After studying the lives of other artists--it seems that the problem that happens to many masters of physical skills, whether martial arts or an instrument--is that they master the instrument--but they must develop a style to differentiate themselves--and in the process, they become trapped by their own style--prisoners of it. Like the Gregory Bateson quote: "When the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." With many artists, the height of their style development is the height of their career, often, following that, they repeat themselves in ever diminishing spirals of novelty, besmirching their significant achievements in the process. This is a problem not just for musicians, look at the work of many novelists, as well. My experiment grew out of frustration with becoming dependent on sight reading music, and having developed complex performance skills on the piano, and being able to sight read complicated works by Bach and Beethoven--but not being able to improvise. I asked the question, what if I went in the other direction? What would happen? What is the extreme boundary of that other direction?

Seamoor Glas
The Iterators

zak
Yup. They confirm a pet theory of mine.

Oh vez mear! Oy gevalt! This is worse than MEESA MASHEENA! So now who is the zhlub? A shaynem dank dir im pupik...

Seymour Glass
The Iterators

This post has been removed by the author.

Last edited: Sep 23, 2009 17:41:31

zak
_Amount of 'flowery mumbo-jumbo' and name-dropping used to describe one's 'art' and 'creativity' is inversely proportionate to quality of said 'art'_

See, this is a zero sum game that I never should have agreed to play. I have already stated, repeatedly, that I don't seek an audience or parade around in public--and i only posted some stuff at the insistence of others. The whole point of what I originally wrote was that 'good taste' is the enemy of creativity. Self judging shuts down the process. By your criteria, the vast majority of students should just give it up because they will never pass the Zak test...I thought this site was SurfGuitar101?

You think Stradivarius' first violin was a masterpiece?

Share your insights into the creative process... You've had a lot of success and critical acclaim. What do you recommend for aspiring song writers?

Seamoor Glas
The Iterators

This post has been removed by the author.

Last edited: Sep 23, 2009 17:41:53