The Most Important Question Of The Day

[ericcoleman]

[Poll #1191519]

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I'll answer once I figure out whether you mean playing guitar or sex.

[ericcoleman]

I'd answer the same either way.

Feel will lead to technique, technique will not necessarily lead to feel

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

All I know is that I don't play the guitar, so ...

[hardly-angelic.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Feel matters more. But technique feeds feel, in my experience. Knowing more techniques gives you more options for expressing feel.

[ericcoleman]

I disagree with that completely and totally. I have known a lot of players, and I mean a LOT of players, who have tons of technique and no sense of what to do with it whatsover.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

TI will certainly agree that people can learn technique and still play without feeling.

You have to start with the feeling inside—and with a willingness to express that feeling—or the technique is empty. Kind of like the polished speeches of politicians one could name…

But a person can also have the feeling locked inside by lack of the skills needed to express it, and also by lack of self-confidence due to lack of skills.

Also, my personal experience is that learning to express the feeling inside effectively not only releases that feeling, but enhances my understanding and awareness of it, so I feel deeper, and can express better and more freely. One of the good recursive circles. That’s what I meant when I said that I find technique feeds feel.

I guess my bottom line is that technique is a key. Whether a particular person uses it or just polishes it is up to him/her/zir.

[blur01.livejournal.com]

Urrr...

I am, just on principal, going to disagree with you here.

[quadrivium.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I do not believe these are separate, therefore I will not choose. I will quote Dr. Jerry Alan Bush instead:

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TECHNIQUE AND INTERPRETATION, so

ALWAYS PRACTICE A WORK THE WAY YOU WISH TO PERFORM IT -- EXCEPT IN MATTERS OF TEMPO. Expression can not be added over rigid and mechanical preparation. Therefore,

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN FASTER, PRACTICE SLOWER. Excessive speed prevents the thorough assimilation of both physical and expressive qualities, and besides, additional speed is one of the easiest attributes to develop -- IF THE SPEED IS ADDED IN SMALL ENOUGH INCREMENTS.

To this I will add, someone who plays scales or other exercises quickly and evenly -- but not musically is NOT demonstrating good technique. They've left out the paramount element of music -- musicality. It's like spewing out a bunch of words without saying anything of sense. They've left out the feel.

I am saying music pyrotechnics without the 'feel' is not technique. It's exercise -- and poorly done at that.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

A shorter answer might be that you have to HAVE a critter to feed it!

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

What he said.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

I'm voting technique because if their technique sucks rocks, it can be hard to get past that for the feel. Deeply felt fingernails on blackboards are still fingernails on blackboards...