Re: [Harp-L] Getting Good and Getting Even Better

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have meet several "genius" and the one thing in common that I have 
> noticed is a penchant for obsessive behavior, low self esteem, lack of 
> social skills, lack of a thought to mouth filtering system, wide range of 
> emotions. In short these people most likely need to be on medication of 
> some sort.

Though my experience with geniuses is substantially different from yours, 
the original post was centered on the notion of getting good and then 
getting even better, which is an ongoing concern for any artist, 
professional or amateur.  A discussion of genius is always valuable, but a 
discussion on Harp-L about the nature of getting really good at our shared 
endeavor, and then getting really REALLY good, is at least as useful.  (I 
wasn't really clear on the main point of the post.)

I do list some geniuses in the post, but my question finally is Why do some 
players become monsters?  I work with loads of serious monsters, almost 
none of whom I would classify as geniuses.  They're just fabulous musicians 
who work really hard way past their early years.  Monsters.  Heck, Chris, 
you're a monster.

I think my main motivation for posting link to the article is that I know 
that alot of harp players work hard at learning for 3 or 5 years and then 
they're the neighborhood mofo and life changes and the questions of making 
a living and raising a family - lots of questions in fact - intervene and 
because one is the local neighborhood harp wiz one is not so challenged to 
learn more at the pace at which one has learned what one has learned so 
far.  This makes my post - with its original not-well-enough-stated 
intention - appropriate for Harp-L.

Other reasons a harp player might stop studying with his or her original 
ferocity include:
1. We've mastered the subset of musical skills that allow us to play 
harmonica reasonably well.  It doesn't occur to most people to start 
learning, say, music theory, dynamics, articulation, whatever.  I think 
Harp-l is the right place to remind us all, me included, why it's important 
to keep finding stuff to learn that relates to our playing.
2. We have to work harder than we did at first to keep getting better.  I 
had this problem in my schoolwork a thousand years ago.  Everything came 
easy to me until high school.  Then I somehow wound up taking a college 
level math course that would have taken LOTS of work to understand.  I just 
tuned out instead and never got better at math, because it no longer came easy.
3. Up to a certain point the road is lined-out for us, we have alot of 
stuff to shoot for.  Suddenly one can do a reasonable facsimile of ones 
heros and one may or may not realize that the next step is assembling, inch 
by inch, a style of one's own.  I have heard your wonderful playing, Chris, 
and I know you pushed on from there.

But we can stall out at any point along the way, and I think it's important 
to keep studying, to keep learning, to learn new styles, to learn music 
theory, stuff like that. It might not make a player a genius, or even a 
monster (though hard work makes it pretty likely) but it's a great way to 
keep improving and staying seriously interested.