keep on exploring

today i am going to talk about being open-mind, making music and playing the guitar.

i think the older i get and the longer i am playing the guitar the more i am realizing the importance of staying curious.

some of the things that i play on my guitar work out well, other stuff gets discarded. it´s easy to stick to the things that work out well and shut the door on other more risky possibilities. f.ex. there is this one brand of pick that i have been using forever. the one brand of strings that i have been playing all my life. but also this one way of looking at a certain chord progression. and also there are my favorite players that i have been listening to!  and some sort of anxiety towards music i´m not familiar with. so i rather stick with the familiar sounds.

i developed a taste  - what´s a good line? what´s a great guitar player? there are more or less conscious guidelines to that. everything has been put in a box. that´s so much safer and also easier than exploring new territory. maybe even territoire that makes me uncomfortable. 

so i am practicing with the goal of becoming THE perfect guitar player. there are rules to that, too. could even be a certain kind of chord voicing that i would think of a terrible choice in a certain kind of musical context. 

but it is boring. i am feeling trapped. too many rules. maybe even to many intimidating heros. let´s start over again. adapt a beginner's mindset. and learn something new! and if it is is only a new song!

 "jazz" (for the lack of a better word) has always been about expressing yourself. finding your own voice. playing in a way that resonates with your own inner voice. 

take something you like and fool around with it. it could be one chord. one line. a texture. and follow your gut. forget about wrong and right for a second and experiment. maybe you´ll write a new song like this.

all the best 

tina