[Harp-L] Re: How to improvize, the process... (two parts)

[Pierre <plavio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

After Dan's e-mail, I replied to Dan and here is part of what came out:

Dan,

I've been thinking of vocabulary (something you mentioned) and speach and trying to understand how that happens. We sometimes think about what we are about to say (as in: should I say that), but generally we don't think when we speak, it just comes out (its like thinking but with the mouth switch enabled). For example, I see a driver in car do something real stupid. My mouth speaks: "Did you see that, what an idiot..."  or I want the salt at the table, I see the salt is too far to reach and I say: "Can you pass me the salt please". If I am speaking of music with someone, I can talk and talk and talk without ever thinking of my next sentence. Of course sometimes we do think about the next sentence as in "I have two arguments for you, one blah blah blah   and two...". None of this is wrong.

(think how you speak, it is improvisation based on a context, no real thinking involved much of the time actually it is thinking aloud)

Now if I try to say something in Spanish (which I know very little), my sentences will have wrong grammar or wrong order of words and invented words and it will not sound much like Spanish (music) and I will have to think a lot to try and express whatever I want to say.

Now when I speak English,  a language that I learned at a young age, its just like speaking French, I just speak, I do not translate or think (I can think in English or in French, usually I just think in the last language I spoke - its that easy for me). So getting back to music, then at the highest level of proficiency I assume, what you want to express just comes out; so what you need is a musical language (vocabulary) and ideas what to say.

So what comes out of that, well practice is the key to fluency and that gets me back on the subject of what to practice to get there in a reasonable amount of time. I will leave that for another day.

 ===

Well its another day...

What to practice, well when I learned English at age 6, I watched a lot of English TV (Lost in space,...) and that is where I learned vocabulary, I also read thousands of Batman and Superman comics and I played with neighbouring kids which were all English (very uncommon in Quebec). Anyways I never worked at learning English, I just did it. Learned to write later by just doing it, nobody showed me. Dan mentioned that is how he learned the harp, never really working just playing.

A few more thoughts...

So I need vocabulary, ok so I should chatter incessantly on the harp, with time it will only get better (hope). What else, well when I think I vocalize in my head, I should be able to do that with music but I can't, wait a minute I can, Happy birthday to youuuuu, ... need to think music, need music phonemes for music (was on to that a while ago, but did not do it much), got to do that all the time, this is cool.

Big thanks Dan, see you guys,

Pierre.