Great advice, Chris, and right on target. "That kid, always in a hurry," is my theme song. I will try my best to savor the notes. Once again, thank you for the thoughtful comments. Mark
This is great stuff, Chris. And mighty deep. It will take some time to absorb the value of all you've included here. But, in the immediate future I can already visualize applying those two concepts in my daily efforts to build/re-build my performance repertoire. The concept of perfection as a "second rate idea" resonates. It fits with things I've already been applying in my professional work as a mental health counselor. An idea so profound on a humanistic and spiritual level it gave me the chills. :-D Funny how the things you teach come back around to poke you in the ribs. Thank you so much for taking time to bring that forward. I really appreciate it. Mark
Thank you, Chris. That is very encouraging to me. Excellent tip on the hammers, also. It will help me as I begin to work things out on my own, that are based on stuff that is working for the experts (like yourself). Something about your arrangements and approach really inspire me to figure it out. Kudos for being true to your inner voice. Mark
Mark, you sound great! Seriously, watching that put a huge grin on my face. You're achieving the attributes that you mentioned in the thread about Wildwood Flower: clear, clean notes, flowing movement, and excellent timing.
One technical thing that might help: at 0:22, when you are playing the second set of hammer-ons (A to Bb on the 3rd string), your right hand pick direction can be Down, Up, Up through the syncopation. That should help you navigate the syncopation with more confidence. I'll film a video to show you what I mean:
You could also play that phrase with all downstrokes for a more powerful, forceful sound but I would try to do it with the proper pick direction first.
Thank you, Chris. That is very encouraging to me. Excellent tip on the hammers, also. It will help me as I begin to work things out on my own, that are based on stuff that is working for the experts (like yourself). Something about your arrangements and approach really inspire me to figure it out. Kudos for being true to your inner voice. Mark
Chris, thank you for the encouragement. I'll try to be brief-- I'm a storyteller and a mental health professional, so these questions can have very long answers :-).
Perfection means no criticism that might wound my ego. Up to this point, reaching for the highest level has kept me from actually getting in front of others and thereby being pointed out as a failure.
As far as what makes a performance perfect: clear, clean notes, flowing movement, and excellent timing-- easily determined by the phrase, "would Steve Kaufman miss that note?"
Of course, saying all of these things make them sound pretentious and high falutin'. But, I am trying to climb down from the high horse. So keep talking. I'm listening. Mark
Thanks Kip. I get your drift. Of course, knowing and doing can be worlds apart.
Decided it's time to publish this. I get stuck on perfection and never really know when to perform. My main goal in working through your material has been to break out of my closet perfectionism loop and start playing for other people. Any tips on moving forward would help.
Mark, beautifully played! You sound really great, close to perfect, so in that sense I'd say you are achieving your goal. Guitar playing-wise I have nothing to add but I'd like to start a little dialogue to address your question. I guess my first question would be, why do you want it to be perfect? To what end is that serving you? Also, what, to you, defines something as perfect?
Mark/Chris - may I make a comment. First off - awesome picking job. Sounded great. As for perfection - I always wanted to be pefect before I attempted to play for anyone. In a way, it held me back. Since I could never play anything close enough to perfect, I rarely played, or progressed even as an amateur guitar picker. I couldn't ask anyone to teach me anything - because I knew eventually I'd have to play what I'd been taught to my teacher (imperfectly). I'm not sure that makes any sense but the years go by very quickly and eventually you end up old(er) and can't play a lick. Luckily I changed my thinking on that. I'm not a great guitar player but I'm having fun and learning something knew. I wish I had 1/10th of the talent of most people on here but no one is having more fun than I am. Great Job Mark!
Chris, thank you for the encouragement. I'll try to be brief-- I'm a storyteller and a mental health professional, so these questions can have very long answers :-).
Perfection means no criticism that might wound my ego. Up to this point, reaching for the highest level has kept me from actually getting in front of others and thereby being pointed out as a failure.
As far as what makes a performance perfect: clear, clean notes, flowing movement, and excellent timing-- easily determined by the phrase, "would Steve Kaufman miss that note?"
Of course, saying all of these things make them sound pretentious and high falutin'. But, I am trying to climb down from the high horse. So keep talking. I'm listening. Mark
Thanks Kip. I get your drift. Of course, knowing and doing can be worlds apart.
Mark, thanks for engaging with me on this and sorry for the slow response time. I try to get to answering comments here at least once a week but the last week and a half have been really busy and I'm just now getting caught up.
I hear what you're saying about seeking "perfection" as shield against projected criticism that could/would wound one's ego. I understand that very well and I feel it myself quite a bit, especially now that I'm in a position of being an authority who people look up to. There have been times while filming video for the site I've gotten caught up in doing take after take of an introduction because I feel if you guys saw me make a little mistake my cover would be blown and I would be outed as the imposter that I really am. Now, of course, that's just the insecure voice in the back of my mind talking and I know it doesn't reflect reality, but those insecurities are very real and we all have to deal with them in our own way.
I've found 2 truths to be very useful for dealing with this:
-Everyone is rooting for you. People are almost always genuinely happy and appreciative that you're sharing yourself/your music and they will extend goodwill your way. If you're going out of your way to play music for someone it is *very* rare that they are actually judging you in a harsh or negative way. Don't forget that.
-Perfection doesn't sound as good as imperfection. This is empowering. When we were making the most recent Punch Brothers album we were wanting to re-record and re-record this one song to get it all exactly right, exactly the way we heard it in our heads. T-Bone Burnett, who was producing, told us "perfection is a second rate idea." I think he's right. Perfection is kind of two dimensional and flat, because it's something that our brains can conceive of. But reality and imperfection are so much more interesting than that. So much of the joy of music is that it's alive, it's happening in real-time, it's organic. It's surprising. For me, opening myself up to that perspective has made me much more compassionate toward myself and that has made me a better musician.
Chris
p.s. I should add that playing clean notes with great time is a wonderful and certainly a great thing to strive for, but it's not what makes something good. Not to me, anyway. I want to hear the person behind those notes. If someone plays super clean it just tells me that they are interested in clean playing -- nothing more, nothing less.
This is great stuff, Chris. And mighty deep. It will take some time to absorb the value of all you've included here. But, in the immediate future I can already visualize applying those two concepts in my daily efforts to build/re-build my performance repertoire. The concept of perfection as a "second rate idea" resonates. It fits with things I've already been applying in my professional work as a mental health counselor. An idea so profound on a humanistic and spiritual level it gave me the chills. :-D Funny how the things you teach come back around to poke you in the ribs. Thank you so much for taking time to bring that forward. I really appreciate it. Mark
Hey Chris, thank you for the great feedback. I depended quite a bit on the tab for this song, initially. That may have caused me to focus too heavily on accuracy at the expense of groove. I've tried to take your advice and round out the crosspicking, but the tab on the first (full) and third bars confuses me when I try to imitate the three-string roll. Let me kow if I'm close. Hope the tour is going well. Mark
Thanks for your comment on my post, Kip. I appreciate it. Nice job, here, as well. One of the hardest parts of playing, in my humble opinion, is relaxing and letting the music flow. After I get a tune "down" I spend most of my time trying to let the fingers do the talking, not thinking much about precision-- otherwise, it can fall apart pretty quickly. Keep up the great work!
Hey Chris, thank you for the great feedback. I depended quite a bit on the tab for this song, initially. That may have caused me to focus too heavily on accuracy at the expense of groove. I've tried to take your advice and round out the crosspicking, but the tab on the first (full) and third bars confuses me when I try to imitate the three-string roll. Let me kow if I'm close. Hope the tour is going well. Mark
This is such a beautiful song that you might try slowing it down a little bit and seeing how much you can milk it. That said, the groove and flow are really good here - notable improvement. Well done!
Great advice, Chris, and right on target. "That kid, always in a hurry," is my theme song. I will try my best to savor the notes. Once again, thank you for the thoughtful comments. Mark
Wonderful lesson on White Dove, Chris. I appreciate your effort to focus on the fundamentals of Bluegrass with this tune. I've tried to copy your rendition (with some red light syndrome) as part of working on my ear training. I appreciate any comments. Mark
Mark, you sound great! I really like how clearly all of the guitar playing is coming through - I can really hear all of the instrumental statements you are making. This is really a lovely rendition - I don't really have any constructive criticism other than keep it up. To challenge yourself you might try playing a break where you play the melody up an octave.
Great advice, Chris, and right on target. "That kid, always in a hurry," is my theme song. I will try my best to savor the notes. Once again, thank you for the thoughtful comments. Mark
This is great stuff, Chris. And mighty deep. It will take some time to absorb the value of all you've included here. But, in the immediate future I can already visualize applying those two concepts in my daily efforts to build/re-build my performance repertoire. The concept of perfection as a "second rate idea" resonates. It fits with things I've already been applying in my professional work as a mental health counselor. An idea so profound on a humanistic and spiritual level it gave me the chills. :-D Funny how the things you teach come back around to poke you in the ribs. Thank you so much for taking time to bring that forward. I really appreciate it. Mark
Thank you, Chris. That is very encouraging to me. Excellent tip on the hammers, also. It will help me as I begin to work things out on my own, that are based on stuff that is working for the experts (like yourself). Something about your arrangements and approach really inspire me to figure it out. Kudos for being true to your inner voice. Mark
My submission. I finally decided to send it, though it isn't quite as polished as I'd like. Still feel like I'm trying too hard. :-)
Thanks for listening.
Mark
Mark, you sound great! Seriously, watching that put a huge grin on my face. You're achieving the attributes that you mentioned in the thread about Wildwood Flower: clear, clean notes, flowing movement, and excellent timing.
One technical thing that might help: at 0:22, when you are playing the second set of hammer-ons (A to Bb on the 3rd string), your right hand pick direction can be Down, Up, Up through the syncopation. That should help you navigate the syncopation with more confidence. I'll film a video to show you what I mean:
You could also play that phrase with all downstrokes for a more powerful, forceful sound but I would try to do it with the proper pick direction first.
Thank you, Chris. That is very encouraging to me. Excellent tip on the hammers, also. It will help me as I begin to work things out on my own, that are based on stuff that is working for the experts (like yourself). Something about your arrangements and approach really inspire me to figure it out. Kudos for being true to your inner voice. Mark
Chris, thank you for the encouragement. I'll try to be brief-- I'm a storyteller and a mental health professional, so these questions can have very long answers :-).
Perfection means no criticism that might wound my ego. Up to this point, reaching for the highest level has kept me from actually getting in front of others and thereby being pointed out as a failure.
As far as what makes a performance perfect: clear, clean notes, flowing movement, and excellent timing-- easily determined by the phrase, "would Steve Kaufman miss that note?"
Of course, saying all of these things make them sound pretentious and high falutin'. But, I am trying to climb down from the high horse. So keep talking. I'm listening. Mark
Thanks Kip. I get your drift. Of course, knowing and doing can be worlds apart.
Chris,
Decided it's time to publish this. I get stuck on perfection and never really know when to perform. My main goal in working through your material has been to break out of my closet perfectionism loop and start playing for other people. Any tips on moving forward would help.
Mark
Mark, beautifully played! You sound really great, close to perfect, so in that sense I'd say you are achieving your goal. Guitar playing-wise I have nothing to add but I'd like to start a little dialogue to address your question. I guess my first question would be, why do you want it to be perfect? To what end is that serving you? Also, what, to you, defines something as perfect?
Mark/Chris - may I make a comment. First off - awesome picking job. Sounded great. As for perfection - I always wanted to be pefect before I attempted to play for anyone. In a way, it held me back. Since I could never play anything close enough to perfect, I rarely played, or progressed even as an amateur guitar picker. I couldn't ask anyone to teach me anything - because I knew eventually I'd have to play what I'd been taught to my teacher (imperfectly). I'm not sure that makes any sense but the years go by very quickly and eventually you end up old(er) and can't play a lick. Luckily I changed my thinking on that. I'm not a great guitar player but I'm having fun and learning something knew. I wish I had 1/10th of the talent of most people on here but no one is having more fun than I am. Great Job Mark!
Chris, thank you for the encouragement. I'll try to be brief-- I'm a storyteller and a mental health professional, so these questions can have very long answers :-).
Perfection means no criticism that might wound my ego. Up to this point, reaching for the highest level has kept me from actually getting in front of others and thereby being pointed out as a failure.
As far as what makes a performance perfect: clear, clean notes, flowing movement, and excellent timing-- easily determined by the phrase, "would Steve Kaufman miss that note?"
Of course, saying all of these things make them sound pretentious and high falutin'. But, I am trying to climb down from the high horse. So keep talking. I'm listening. Mark
Thanks Kip. I get your drift. Of course, knowing and doing can be worlds apart.
Mark, thanks for engaging with me on this and sorry for the slow response time. I try to get to answering comments here at least once a week but the last week and a half have been really busy and I'm just now getting caught up.
I hear what you're saying about seeking "perfection" as shield against projected criticism that could/would wound one's ego. I understand that very well and I feel it myself quite a bit, especially now that I'm in a position of being an authority who people look up to. There have been times while filming video for the site I've gotten caught up in doing take after take of an introduction because I feel if you guys saw me make a little mistake my cover would be blown and I would be outed as the imposter that I really am. Now, of course, that's just the insecure voice in the back of my mind talking and I know it doesn't reflect reality, but those insecurities are very real and we all have to deal with them in our own way.
I've found 2 truths to be very useful for dealing with this:
-Everyone is rooting for you. People are almost always genuinely happy and appreciative that you're sharing yourself/your music and they will extend goodwill your way. If you're going out of your way to play music for someone it is *very* rare that they are actually judging you in a harsh or negative way. Don't forget that.
(continued below...)
-Perfection doesn't sound as good as imperfection. This is empowering. When we were making the most recent Punch Brothers album we were wanting to re-record and re-record this one song to get it all exactly right, exactly the way we heard it in our heads. T-Bone Burnett, who was producing, told us "perfection is a second rate idea." I think he's right. Perfection is kind of two dimensional and flat, because it's something that our brains can conceive of. But reality and imperfection are so much more interesting than that. So much of the joy of music is that it's alive, it's happening in real-time, it's organic. It's surprising. For me, opening myself up to that perspective has made me much more compassionate toward myself and that has made me a better musician.
Chris
p.s. I should add that playing clean notes with great time is a wonderful and certainly a great thing to strive for, but it's not what makes something good. Not to me, anyway. I want to hear the person behind those notes. If someone plays super clean it just tells me that they are interested in clean playing -- nothing more, nothing less.
This is great stuff, Chris. And mighty deep. It will take some time to absorb the value of all you've included here. But, in the immediate future I can already visualize applying those two concepts in my daily efforts to build/re-build my performance repertoire. The concept of perfection as a "second rate idea" resonates. It fits with things I've already been applying in my professional work as a mental health counselor. An idea so profound on a humanistic and spiritual level it gave me the chills. :-D Funny how the things you teach come back around to poke you in the ribs. Thank you so much for taking time to bring that forward. I really appreciate it. Mark
Hey Chris, thank you for the great feedback. I depended quite a bit on the tab for this song, initially. That may have caused me to focus too heavily on accuracy at the expense of groove. I've tried to take your advice and round out the crosspicking, but the tab on the first (full) and third bars confuses me when I try to imitate the three-string roll. Let me kow if I'm close. Hope the tour is going well. Mark
Thanks for your comment on my post, Kip. I appreciate it. Nice job, here, as well. One of the hardest parts of playing, in my humble opinion, is relaxing and letting the music flow. After I get a tune "down" I spend most of my time trying to let the fingers do the talking, not thinking much about precision-- otherwise, it can fall apart pretty quickly. Keep up the great work!
Mark
Nice version. I'm looking forward to the embellishments.
Mark - super cool picking.
Kip
Hey Chris, thank you for the great feedback. I depended quite a bit on the tab for this song, initially. That may have caused me to focus too heavily on accuracy at the expense of groove. I've tried to take your advice and round out the crosspicking, but the tab on the first (full) and third bars confuses me when I try to imitate the three-string roll. Let me kow if I'm close. Hope the tour is going well. Mark
Mark,
This is such a beautiful song that you might try slowing it down a little bit and seeing how much you can milk it. That said, the groove and flow are really good here - notable improvement. Well done!
Great advice, Chris, and right on target. "That kid, always in a hurry," is my theme song. I will try my best to savor the notes. Once again, thank you for the thoughtful comments. Mark
Wonderful lesson on White Dove, Chris. I appreciate your effort to focus on the fundamentals of Bluegrass with this tune. I've tried to copy your rendition (with some red light syndrome) as part of working on my ear training. I appreciate any comments. Mark
Mark, you sound great! I really like how clearly all of the guitar playing is coming through - I can really hear all of the instrumental statements you are making. This is really a lovely rendition - I don't really have any constructive criticism other than keep it up. To challenge yourself you might try playing a break where you play the melody up an octave.