[Harp-L] Are we having fun yet?

[Richard Sleigh <rharp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The discussion about having fun vs learning techniques seems to imply  
that you have to take a stand. You are either for fun or for really  
learning the instrument.

Why not both?

When you are having fun, you are relaxed. I was an art student, and I  
found parallels between vision and hearing. There is a "soft gaze"  
which uses peripheral vision, and there is a hard focus which brings  
details into sharp focus but cuts out the rest of the picture.

The "soft gaze" for me was always more playful and relaxed, AND  
necessary to get the "big picture". The hard focus was is  
concentrated, and I suppose more like "work" and is how I fill in the  
details.

Focused practice with music is like the hard visual focus, and jamming  
and playing around with music is more like the playful "soft gaze"  
that alerts me to all sorts of input that I filter out when I am in  
the hard focus state.

I need both to be a good musician.

And I think we all find our own combination of these two elements,  
consciously or intuitively.

Richard Sleigh

shop address:
205 E. Pine Street
Philipsburg PA 16866-1623

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