we don't need no stinking rehearsal!

["anti:clockwise" <anticlockwise@tensionheadache.org>]

comrades.

sorry - i'm joining the fray on this one rather late in the game, so i 
might be weighing/wading in here with a restatement of the theme as 
already 
expressed nineteen times, but...

speaking just for myownself:
i will report my own aspect of my own unique and individual experience 
with 
all this. and lucky for  yall that it _is_ that way.

so. me? i just feel better playing than i do doing most other things. that 
means i play a LOT. i find all that volume and distortion to be quite 
therapeutic; to say nothing of the 
strategic/chessmoves/trying-to-stay-not-painted-in-a-corner mental moves 
required to keep the pieces moving along nicely.

(strangest thing: somehow in all of this effort i do not see my technical 
playing improving one bit, but, yknow, whatever. can't have everything.)

but the "chops freeze" not the worst news: what's also happening as a 
result of all this practicing is a weird sort of codifying of my 
improvisational techniques. almost to a place where i wonder if i even AM 
improvising any more. sure, the stuff that comes out of my, er, operations 
is never the same twice - tho i do repeat given elements a lot, cause, 
well, they're the ones i have. my record collection may be unwieldy, but 
it 
IS finite.

and i guess i am improving and pushing some boundary someplace. but lately 
i wonder if it wouldn't be more improvisational to actually use a bunch of 
different stuff from time to time. (think i can't play guitar? wait'll you 
hear what i don't do with a trombone...)

but i'm not gonna do that cause i can't afford any new stuff, and right 
now 
i have an extremely complex setup fairly well tamed and i have no 
intention 
of letting THAT beast out of the cage any time soon (richford'll tell ya. 
he's seen it... the horror...)

at one point i realized that the "rehearsal" part of my sessions extended 
so far as getting my ass set up and ready to play in 25 minutes or under, 
and that everything else was "playing". for the record, it's never taken 
under 25 minutes to get it going, but what the hell, it's something to 
shoot for.  so i'm actually rehearsing being a stagehand, and then 
switching roles to "player" in order to answer back to whatever 
emotional/personal/cataclysmic fracas i'm experiencing. fun, huh?

all of this is totally fine with me. or at least, it is what it is. and i 
do get the juice from doing it that i wanna get. and i stay in shape by 
lifting & carrying all that crap when i have to go someplace to perform!

so as a result of all that "practicing", the best compliment i've ever had 
was a recording engineer who told me "wow! you set all that shit up like a 
union guy!"

as a result of all that "playing" comments have been.... rather slow in 
forthcoming. but it feels great to be good at SOMETHING, right?

custom made,
a:c


  Tim Nelson <psychle62@yahoo.com>
said in part


 > So when we talk about "practicing", how much of our response is 
influenced by that sort of
 > cultural baggage? I think it's difficult to discuss the subject in a 
group without some sort of
 > equivocation. Our definitions are bound to differ; some may see 
practicing as a way to develop
 > manual agility and muscle memory so that it'll be simply easier to play 
the music they hear in
 > their heads. To some, the notion may connotate a guy with a pointy 
headstock hunched over
 > the Guitar Grimoire ripping scales.
 > As loopers, "practice" can involve more, too, as the definitions and 
boundaries of our
 > instruments are extended.

and per opined:


 > To me "programming a midi foot controller" is as important as
 > "developing a muscle memory suitable for handling a certain instrument".
 > It all comes down to opening up the channels for musical expression.
 > As well as practicing on playing certain "licks", "compositions" etc you
 > may need to practice staying away from those things. Personally I like
 > the vision of a music that never repeats any part. A non-composed flow
 > that doesn't have a start, doesn't have an ending and that has no
 > "recognizable hook elements". Short excerpts could of course have a
 > strong identity but if you keep listening even that is changing... I'm
 > not yet especially good at playing that type of music but I'm
 > practicing. Practicing on.... TIME ;-)