Re: "Perspective/Perception Is Everything"

["Stephen P. Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

> > Well, I'm sorry you find the idea of formal musical education absurd or
> > offensive.  I hope you can someday find it in yourself to grant other
> > people the indulgence of pursuing the creative path that most suits
> > their own personal beliefs and goals.
>
> But is it? Ask yourself if learning how to create from a textbook and
> "professionals" is really all that creative?
>
> Just a thought.
> --
> travis salisbury

Note my response elsewhere to that reaction on the LD list.  Never said it
was offensive or absurd.  I didn't learn from a textbook nor have a big
perochial training - at times to my regret, as I think I'd have had quite a
career as a conductor.  Despite being assessed as having a natural ability
with music and being able to play by ear, the most I ever got in terms of
training was a sporadic series of home piano lessons, probably more for the
purposes of an attempt to teach discipline and obedience than anything 
else.
Personally I'd have preferred to be able to communicate to other musicians
exactly what I want, by speaking the Standard Language; but because it
wasn't a respectable profession, and typically up-to-the-brim with tales of
poverty - enough to scare the hell out of most 50s parents - I repeatedly
found functional discouragement at home regarding a pursuit of art.  For
these reasons I found myself going back to all of that, and finally taking
after the muse, albeit in my late 30s.  Having been subjected to the jibes
and criticisms of people who've learned guitar from a book, I tended to 
have
trouble at first when I decided to get on with this past the level of
"playing at home and with friends".  I still can't get people to play with
me who have to know which key something's in before starting, or have
trouble deciphering my guitar fingering, but I have no difficulty playing
with people who can do it by ear.  Similarly if someone said "play it in D"
(I use A or E as a base) I'd have some trouble - at the moment.  But to 
each
his or her own.  I have to continue onward, no matter what anyone thinks...
but I NEVER said I didn't have respect for perochially-trained musicians.
I'm sorry if anyone thought I said so, but I didn't.

Stephen Goodman
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