Exercising

Development of the body. mind, or spirit requires exercise.  Gaining proficiency in a craft is attained by exercises passed on by the Masters, and applying them in your own voice.  This morning as I began to practice, a series of notes presented themselves to me.  Hearing the music within these notes I began to follow where they led.  At first this was relatively simple, but then we were stuck.

The whisper from the muse was gone, and I began to exercise what craft I have in composition.  Slowly, a piece was taking form.  In the act of taping what I had so far, a happy accident occurred and I found my way into the next section.  Slyly the creative process had whispered to me once again.  Moving forward I once again did not know how to proceed.  Time for an AT lie down.  My back was grateful as I sunk into the floor.  Taking this time to contemplate and relax my body, distracted my mind from the task at hand.

When I returned to the guitar, the next transition introduced themself to me and I followed along.  Close but no resolution, I took a break for coffee.  Auralizing what I had so far, I found myself humming a possible phrase.  Sure enough this worked and the piece and I continued developing.  Taping what I had and doing a rough notation, I then began tho play the piece again.  Now I found that the ending of the first phrase was being influenced by where the piece had developed to.  Again I followed, but with the changes made,  the next transition no longer worked.  Patiently finding a way to work this out, I smiled, knowing that this was one of those sessions where I was stretching my compositional abilities.  Exersing my capacity to listen and apply.  I just need to allow the process to unfold and weather this actually turns into a piece or just an extended effort is not the point.  Learning and growing as a musician requires exercising the various aspects of musicianship.  One poignant place in the process was adding in what I thought was a "wrong note."

But this "wrong note," was exactly what was needed in this point of the piece.  No need to think, just play, discover, and listen.