Saturday, June 28, 2014

Fanatical Behavior

While I am a musician I am also a music fan and fan of other musicians.  I waited for what seemed to my wife to be an excessive amount of time to have a word with Kurt Rosenwinkel after the Human Feel concert tonight.  It gave me a chance to pay some compliments to other musicians who performed during the night but when the gathered crowd was dwindelling and there was still no sign of Kurt, Ioana said let's go, and we went.  I explained it to her this way: I wanted to tell him thank you for being an inspiration.  I also thought I'd snap a picture of him for my wall of fame.  I realize now and really have for some time that this is perhaps juvenile but the admiration I feel for these guitarists who've inspired my development is real.  Instead of a picture I left with a sonic impression of the evening's music and glimpses of great technique that got me thinking about what goes on in Kurt's mind and fingers so I came home and practiced.  I worked out a diminished pattern that is not on my list but should be so I'll list it here:

|--9-8------8-6-----6-5-----5-3-----3-2----
|------8-10-----7-8-----5-7-----4-5-----2-4
|------------------------------------------
|------------------------------------------
|------------------------------------------
|------------------------------------------ 

Also I noticed Kurt do something like this:
|------0--------------------------------
|--7-6---------0------------------------
|--------8-7-6---------0----------------
|----------------8-7-6---------0--------
|------------------------8-7-6---------0
|--------------------------------8-7-6--

That got me thinking about other open string ideas such as:
|----------------------------0---3
|----------------------0---3---6--
|----------------0---3---6--------
|----------0---3---6--------------
|----0---3---6--------------------
|--3---6--------------------------

On the way home, my wife asked me how he made his guitar sound like a bass and an organ and I knew the answer and I knew that someday I could do the same if circumstances warranted it.  I guess it would be more realistic to expect that when you go to a concert you will hear music, not necessarily meet up with the artists who make it.  But what if you want to thank them for the music and demonstrate that they've made a valuable contribution to your musical thinking?  Then you write them a thank you letter or you write a song that expresses such.  Someone like Kurt has given guitarists and musicians in general so much to think about that our artistic debt is sort of self-evident.     He's the man!  Anyway, I'm not a sycophant, just a fan and a musician thankful to everyone whose made an impact on my musical development.





|--------12-11\8--------9-8\5------6-5\2------3
|--13-14----------10-11--------7-8--------4-5--
|----------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------

|--------14-12\11--------12-11\9--------11-9\8-------9-8\6-
|--13-14-----------11-13----------10-11---------8-10-------
|----------------------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------------------
|----------------------------------------------------------


The other side to all this is that you feel the onus of what you wish to become, artistically.  You feel inspired to grow.  Anyway, music has always been a source of joy and the sort of malingering that goes on after a concert is fine to a point but one should never feel disappointed because you didn't get a word in or a photo with your particular guitar hero.  You got what you came for and that's the music.  


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