composing, spirituality...

Haverstick here...the cool thing about this forum is that there are
some sharp folks on board, who get you to thinking...for example,
Szanto's comment that kick ass chops are not enough without solid
compositions is right on...it made me realize that I have never
separated composition from chops because of an interesting fact: in
the blues/jazz bag that I developed my style in, EVERYONE is a com-
poser. Why? Because improvisation is the name of the game in these
styles, so every time you play, it's SUPPOSED to sound different
than the last time...there's a saying, "if you're not making mis-
takes, you're not playing"...true indeed. Which also got me to
realizing, somewhat sadly, that today's "classical" musicians, by
and large, are mainly interpreters of other people's music (the
composer) rather than creators (improvisors) who have the ability
to create spontaneous compositions with substance and style. I have
a lot of respect for, especially, the Baroque masters of Germany...
they were EXPECTED to be very proficient in many areas, including
writing for church services, playing organ, directing the choir,
teaching knucklehead kids who coul;dn't sing, and just generally
being monster musicians...of course, Bach was legendary for his
ability to spin fugues of great genius onm a moment's notice...
what's interesting to me is that today's jazz and blues musicians
are the inheritors of the art of improvisation...
Also, Bruce Kanzelmeyer's post on spiritual values was wonderful;
coincidently, I am studying a book by Alain Danielou, "Music and the
Power of Sound", which takes a look at ancient Indian and Chinese
systems of music, and relates the structures and cycles to the much
larger structures of the whole Universe...the Book of the Hopi talks
of flute music that healed a body pierced by an arrow, and Danielou's
book also mentions musicians who could heal and achieve incredible
states of consciousness. So, I hope Bruce's post does get us to
looking at the deeper levels of music...it is true that music has
some very basic laws, physical correspondences which were CREATED
as part of the structure of the Universe...how we work with these
primal laws has a great effect on the world around us...Hstick

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