Thinking is the Enemy....

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things. Ray Bradbury 

Good Morning! I wanted to share with you the thoughts behind creativity. One of the hardest things I face right now as a musician, vocalist first, rhythm guitar player second, is the fact that I am married to a lead guitar player. Now why would that be a difficulty. Weeeellllllll, it’s like this. He loves my vocals but absolutely hates my guitar playing. He gets frustrated with me because I refuse to listen to him…LOL It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that when I am playing a song I tend to play it on the guitar more like I feel it rather than by the structured “rules” of guitar playing. I don’t mean to do it, I really don’t mean to break the “rules”,  it’s just that when I am singing and playing rhythm guitar my guitar tends to pattern the rhythm after what is happening with the vocals. He has said that my rhythm patterns are too much alike. I don’t think so, I know that there is a definitive difference between the way I played guitar 10 years ago. Hell, to me there is a vast difference between just 6 months ago. My rhythm guitar playing skills is probably the biggest challenge I face as a musician today. I want to give you an example. The song I have been talking about, Dac’w Nghariad, is incredibly difficult. First it’s sung in Welsh, secondly it’s such a pretty song that as a musician you just don’t want to trash it. In just a moment I am going to play the song for you so you can see what I am up against. At any rate, even after playing this song for about 6 months I am STILL intimidated by it on the vocals and on the guitar. I don’t pick the song like you will hear in the video, I simply play the rhythm, but it’s incredibly hard. There is SO much going on with the vocals, and not just in the fact that it is sung in Welsh. I don;t know if a person who is not a musician can understand what I am referring to so let me see if I can put this in perspective for the non-musician out there. It’s like trying to iron a dress and at the same time use your foot to rock a babies crib in time with a lullaby and have a phone ringing in the background that you desperately want to answer but if you put the iron down the dress will burn and if you stop rocking the cradle the baby will cry. It’s that crazy LOL. I don;t know if that makes sense to you, but here is the song and maybe just by hearing it you can understand the difficulty. You know who’s opinion I really want on this is Bumba. Anyway, with that I leave you with Dac’w Nghariad, which BTW means “there is my love” in Welsh…..

 

Related articles

• How to Learn To Play The Guitar (answers.com)
• Elvis Presley’s Rhythm Guitar Player; Dead at 67. (keenemusic.wordpress.com)
• Best way to record a vocalist and two acoustic guitars? (gearslutz.com)
• How to Perform Rhythm Guitar Licks (5min.com)
• Join my 2013 ‘Creative Project’ Challenge! (cauldronsandcupcakes.com)
• Ray Bradbury Square Will Be Dedicated Today Outside Central Library (laist.com)

About these ads