Re: [Harp-L] Rostropovich and practice




I could be dead wrong about plenty of people who
are fabulous players but are just gunning for #1.  IF so, somewhere
in there there's a mixture I'd guess of joy of the doing and
competitiveness.  Being #1 is ok in darts, maybe even surgery, but
there's just too much range of expression in art/music to choose a
"best".   Most popular, sure.  Any particular quantifiable factor, sure.

I also think there's a kind of line we cross where you can't possibly say who is #1.


(I came up with a weisenheimer answer for my wife the other day when she asked what was my favorite Jazz recording. I told her I could make a list of the Jazz recordings that would be my #1 favorite if the other recordings on the list didn't exist.)

Recalling that I wasn't talking about being #1, (nor that you actually suggested that I was), I am more interested by far in constant exploration of the harp, of my second instrument (the guitar, big surprise) and as a songwriter. I like hearing what I come up with next, as it will be something I never heard before. I've trained myself to get unduly excited when I hit a wall or encounter any skill or learning that is hard to conquer so as to not Give Up.

But the urge to be #1, while it misses the point about music is supposed to be fun for you and your audience, is not the worst thing a young musician. Or to say exactly what I mean, I'm a big advocate of competition among near equals, as it can make everyone much better than they would have been without it.

When I was 15 I was a local hotshot player, and I thought so, too. My mentor intentionally introduced me to a 14 year old kid whose harp playing made me sound like an idiot. I was furious that someone could be that much better than me. I made up to hang out with the kid as much as possible and we became really good friends and had many adventures around the city of NY, and played in Washington Square together every Sunday. All the while I soaked up his licks and his whole approach.

At the same time, there was a boy about two years younger than me who had asked for lessons, and he was talented, and very quickly he decided to go gunning for me - and I knew it.

Well, I WAS going to catch that first guy, and there was no way on earth I was going to let the other guy catch me. I wound up getting WAY better than I would have gotten if those two guys hadn't been around. One night about two years after I started hanging around the fabulous young player he said the coolest thing to me. He said "Ken, when I met you you thought you were hot stuff, but you couldn't play s__t. Now you've passed me by."

And I had, too, because I worked like a monster to do so. Importantly, to your point, part of the reason that this guy was so good was that he really made magic. It wasn't just licks, and I knew that, he really entertained an audience with his playing, there was real musical content. He had amazing licks, and I grabbed every single one, along with all the other stuff I was inventing and appropriating, but his best lesson was that his music really got to people, and I was able to create my own way of doing that by creating what was essentially an imaginary competition between us.

And the guy who was chasing me? That was great for both of us, because I couldn't let up and he just kept getting better and better while trying to catch me. Almost 30 years later I heard a CD he made, and he had certainly crossed into that set of players who would be at the top of the heap if the rest of us in the set had take up banjo instead of harmonica.





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