subject: The Ultimate Musician [print this page] The Ultimate Musician The Ultimate Musician
Passed the first get-started stages, mastering one's musical instrument often undergoes a highly accelerated curve of learning. Some denote it exponential, while others relate to it as the S curve. The latter is probably a better description of the actual reality since the dreadful plateau is waiting for any long-hearted musical warrior.
Learning basic musical tricks left and right is certainly at the hand of anybody willing to achieve the first goal that made him pick up the instrument at the first place. But then, what's to come? Hundreds of musicians do have exceptional technical skills that go way beyond the common. Yet they are in no way ultimate musicians because they lack the mental bridge that allows them to transcend music and leave a permanent and easily recognizable footprint.
Composing your own songs is one way to reach this level, but is in no way a guarantee. Depending on what your goals are, you can be really inspired in bringing a new dimension to your music, or fall into a despair of clichs that tickle the average year but fail to raise what is deeply hidden in you. At this point, it should be obvious that you do not want to fall into common platitude but rather push your limits to the unknown and never stop getting more experienced.
The following points aim to summarize the ground intersecting ideas that characterize the ultimate musician. They can be seen as 3 sides of the same triangular train of thought:
The Ultimate Musician is always thirsty for new worlds to conquer
Instead of being bound to your favorite musical genre, you must do exhaustive research on the musical genres out there in the world. Try to understand the musical specificities in terms of modes, connections, rhythms, etc. Next is to play along, to improvise and to connect your existing knowledge with what you are experimenting.
Once the basis for this new source of knowledge has its framework more or less settled, a symbiosis must build in order to fluidly to connect your members and your ideas to allow for a dynamic artistic shape of new music. An important emphasis must be done on distinguishing what you like to and play and what you should play instead.
The Ultimate Musician combines the qualities of a musical philosopher and the unsatisfied wanderer
The intangible waves that make up music together help awaken inner vibrations in the human body. In the dualistic tradition, this is a typical tension between the intellectual work done by the brain, and the passive reception of the soul and spirit. In this context, just like any other artistic piece, music does not intrinsically define a beginning and end, but presents itself like an interpretable snapshot.
Modern songs exist with their own structure that makes it easy to identify the different segments, but this wasn't the case. What you want to play has to sound eternal and keep the theme well anchored in your audience's mind. Human imagination is a sensitive spot that likes to be challenged, so don't let the interest drop.
The Ultimate Musician is an artistic free thinker not bound by conventional constraints.
This one may alienate hardcore advocates of classic attitude toward music. But in fact, even the best classical musicians were fundamentally non-conformists. Artistic innovation can lead to many unnecessary extremes, structural anarchies, and misunderstood explorations. Nevertheless, this is indeed what helped to push the borders of musical exploration even further. Evolution comes with the often deadly price of rejection. This tendency is to be found in pretty much any free form disciple and music is no exception.
It is up to the listener to evaluate the degree of order that the musician presents. A careful balance must be kept between what is authentically derived from the musicians' inspiration and what should be trashed as useless filler drawn from previous melodies, songs, licks and easy shortcuts. You will probably not reinvent all the musical conventions, but it is your duty to bring your own explanative touch to them.
Striving to go beyond one's capabilities is what distinguishes the common from the uncommon. May you prosper in your insatiable quest for deeper undergrounds, farther horizons, and higher skies.
