An Experience in Musical Creation by Ney Mello

The musicians who can transform me are always poets, not virtuosos, or shredders.  I simply don't like shredding and virtuoso culture since it is not related to musical transcendence. This may seem contradictory coming from someone who is a virtuoso and who plays with virtuosos. There is difference between virtuosity and cold tedious technical display. Those who reach my soul may or may not be "sick" technically but their are always "sick poets!"

But I can understand why to most guitarists who have not experienced technical freedom yet, who are still trying to play what they would like to be able to play, shred culture is so pervasive.

But virtuosity per se, never was interesting to me since I was a little boy...only music mattered....the full experience...and that includes being a virtuoso, but only as a tool, so one can experience music completely.

Being technically incompetent is very limiting if one desires the full experience, but being a shredder and   technique worshipper is also much worse as it becomes an egotistical  perversion, that cuts one off the musical realms of absolute bliss. 

Furthermore, in my experience, the worse perversion and comical self-delusion of grandeur is to be an intellectual theorist and ideologue in art. Poets do not separate themselves from art in this way. In fact any artist cannot exist if he separates himself from absolute art  in this way.  

So, to me it is very simple: Be a poet. Be music. Learn all you can theoretically and master it as a tool, and never think that the tool is a definition of music or formula for fabricating what cannot be fabricated intellectually.

In this way you will be free to experience the absolute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ney_mello

To Read or Not To Read (part three)

  Alright! You made it to part three! So by now you know how I feel about reading music. I really think that learning standard notation is "money in the bank" - a great investment. But investments take time to appreciate. If you just keep chipping away at it day by day, you'll be blown away by how your musical understanding will grow exponentially. Are you convinced yet? Ok, well here's my last shot at swaying you.

  Reason No.3- only guitarists understand tablature. Let's pretend that you and your friends made up a language that only you and your friends could understand. It would be fun until you really needed to communicate with someone other than your friends. In other words, you can't write a song out in tablature and hand it to your singer hoping that they'll understand it. Isn't it better to learn a Universal Language (hint, hint)?

  So there you have it. Sure, tablature is easy. If we're just starting out, learning that song we want to play couldn't be easier. And,  every guitar magazine on the planet has everything inside of it neatly tabbed out for us. But at what cost? Do we want to close the doors to all kinds of music as well as composition and theory? Do we want to ignore important foundational concepts such as rhythm, key signatures, and meter? How about shutting ourselves off from much communication with other musicians? Hopefully the answer is no. And, there are loads of great Teachers and Books out there who can help you - no excuses!

  In closing, here's a great exercise you can do once you start learning how to read notes. First, pick out any tune you want to learn. Next, however long it takes to figure out, figure it out by ear. After that, write it down using standard notation. For bonus points, use the theory you learned from being to read music to completely analyze your tune (chords, melody, rhythms, etc). You'll be amazed how much you'll get out of it.

Tune in next week to Have Guitar Will Travel for a guest article from Guitar Virtuoso, Ney Mello. Enjoy!

To Read or Not to Read (part two)

   This week on Have Guitar Will Travel, I'd like to follow up on my open letter to Guitar (and all music) students in regards to note reading. While others out there on the net will undoubtedly disagree with me, I still think learning to read standard notation is "where it's at". As mentioned in part one of this article, learning to read is a gateway to a lot of the advanced material in music. And, that's why here at The School of Music in Rockville MD, all of our teachers require students to complete some level of note reading proficiency. It just prepares everyone for greater things to come. So without further ado, here is this week's #2 reason for learning to read notation.

Reason No. 2- standard notation does a much better job of conveying musical concepts than tablature does. At least once a week, a student brings in a song that they got off the internet that's from some guitar tab site. If I've never heard the tune, your guess is as good as mine as to how it's supposed to sound. I usually have to go to the computer, go to You Tube, and listen to it. The reason for all of this is that tablature is usually devoid of any musical information pertaining to rhythm, dynamics, meter, etc. It only shows you where to put your left hand fingers. Now some people will argue that they have a good ear and don't need anything other than their ears and the occasional tab to get by. That's great - having a good ear is more important than anything in this whole article. However, I think we have to be honest with ourselves ; is it that we all have great ears or do we just not want to put in the time to learn how to read?

So there you have it, reason # 2. Tune in next week for Have Guitar Will Travel's  next installment of To Read or Not to Read.