Hello Pete and the others here:

Yah, you know I at times find myself, now that I've read some new posts and like Malcolm Douglas was mentioning about the technique aspect of this element of life called music, going through sort of a cycle at times. I best say that I'm no veteran to really be saying anything, it's just Pete's way that I appreciate where he broke a kind of ice for me I guess. Music isn't 100% natural, I agree (meaning to the sentiment I've gathered reading all the posts). When I'm mentioning the soul connection etc. it seems to be a part of it because for me the instrument is a kind of link, a translator. I've got a feeling or a need to say something and it's not language per se, and that's how music is really happening, I think at least, for any person who makes the leap to pick up an instrument, such as Pete or anyone, or even just to simply (I shouldn't say just ha) sing. We all learned language in order to communicate. I learned piano (without grades), and will always be learning (I hope ha). This cycle is what Malcolm is bringing out in my struggle to define the translator/technical aspect of music. Like C-flat or Grab are getting at, and Pete's concern, something (I probably don't know what I'm talking about ha) like plateaus, a going back to the translator tool. Another part of this cycle might be other than technique telling me to best start looking at my foundations... that it is like going on a walk in the woods and stopping to see, simply see something.

For me music is language, but a kind of seeing too. It's like playing because I also see something beautiful and music (I hope, at least to myself ha) augments it (not through words or frets or keys), and for me that too is a part of this cyclic occurance beyond returning to technique that can save a beginner before they quit, a crucial moment. I realize I've had a long relationship with E flat major aspect of things since before I played any instrument, since when I was a child tuning around the AM radio dial at night before going to sleep. I realize now the songs I liked tended to be in that key signature. Before I can really relate the beauty of what I see through the E flat major lens I've got to return to technique for a while whether I like it or not, "an ability to let the material tell you" as in Pete's intial posting. But if it's any consolation... before technique holds me back (like technique can do to beginners) I can somehow branch off. Maybe it's this branching off that can hold beginners who get perplexed over not sounding "perfect" and quitting, or quitting really before they start. There is a lot one can do with a little, that's one of the nice things about music, for beginners and for veterans. Wow! Here I'm speaking on behalf of long standing muscians ha!

So as for technique perplexing someone... there was a clear blue day I was resting, leaning my pack against a dwarfed ponderosa pine in the Big Horn Mtns of northern Wyoming out of breath at 9,000 ft. and weak with hunger. There was not a cloud in the sky, nor had there even been any clouds that bitter (a nice kind of bitter though ha) frosty million star night before. I laid to rest from my climb so the sun was behind a pine top. The wind had been racing that morning in a way that I had been listening to the music of it all more than hiking. With my new view I suddenly realized snow was high flying across the pristine blue, not falling, just fragments of sun defying an earthly presence. Before the technique aspect stops me, I find that can happen with music too. That's why I like too what Willi O said about being alone in a natural environment. Okay, music is my piano, its keys, or the banjo, its frets, or my harmonica its ins and outs reed after next note reed after... and the wondering what to do with "it" sometimes, make the thing work better in my hands; but it's this stopping the hike too. Maybe for me at times I'm the beginner over and over, as in the moment after he/she had picked up the instrument then told themself they are a poor musician.   It's not a lot at first that one has, or it can be the exact opposite and daunting ha. So, if any consolation at all ha, it can be this resting with what I have, finding a view of something earthly that is not earthly... only then for an enchanted moment E flat major, or that inanimate instrument laying before you, might not seem so far away.

With Best Regards Pete, and All,
Mike Jensen