Standardization--Dedication--Reasons to Play

[Aeskow@xxxxxxx]

- --Rainbow Jimmy wrote, quoting Pierre:

"you can't get better without devoting your (w)hole life to
something"

- --Actually you can. If you practice a couple times a week and take a day a 
week 
most weeks to play with a friend you will get better. You do not have to
dedicate yourself. You can relax and have fun. You can work on an album, a
novel, and study Karate, hang out with your family, take bike rides, and have
time for work.

Rainbow Jimmy

- --Dead on the money.  In fact, most of the successful artists I know in a 
variety of fields do anything BUT "devote their whole lives to it."  They love 
their instrument, or their canvas, the blank page, or the empty stage--but they 
devote themselves to living fully--falling wildly and inappropriately in love, 
getting in barfights at 3 AM, having kids, divorcing and remarrying, getting 
strung out, getting un-strung out, crying at the weddings of their kids, 
staring down gunbarrels in what Fitzgerald called "the long dark night of the 
soul," finding reasons to go on, etc.  Whatever specific choices they make from the 
menu, they dedicate their lives to chasing dreams and running from 
nightmares--that way they have something to SAY.  We don't discuss that subject too much 
on this list--having something to say--and understandably so, because it can 
get vague real easy.  But I've often wished, when a beginner writes in asking 
what to do, to skip the technique parts and help the person figure out if they 
NEED to play harp in order to express something that will devour themselves 
from inside unless they start playing.  My uncle was directing a show with 
music by the great songwriter Frank Loesser, who at that point was the king of 
Broadway.  But he was the one who insisted on working past sunrise every night, 
chewing speed, guzzling coffee, etc.  Finally my uncle asked him: "Frank, 
you've got all the money, all the reviews, three shows running on Broadway--why do 
you have to keep killing yourself like this?"  Loesser just kept rifling 
through some sheet music and said: "'Cause if I don't, I get a headache."

Peace and Respect
Johnny T