when I don't play guitar.....

Nice! you definitely have multiple talents. Keep up the good work.

-Alex

When I'm not playing guitar, I'm coaching hockey. It's still an art form :lol: ...

Oh, the little Minnesota Wild as I can see :wink:

Is there any little Montreal Canadiens team in your league? :P

Yes, there is a Canadians team.
You must be very happy with your Habs this year. They are doing great. I watched the beat up on Ottawa last night.

Thread bumpness with a new one

While being nowhere near as skilled as Dogbite I do confess I like to fumble around with colors and shapes when noone is watching. :oops:

Fragments of a memory

you guys are good. I think it good to stretch the brain muscles. thinking in visual and making it so is the challenge that creates new neural connections.
in a way it is very much like making music.

something from nothing.
music is somewhat temporal. whereas making an object, like a draweing, you can hold it.
I think those thiongs mean something towards being human.

I think both visual arts, music, literature and all other arts are more or less the same: a way to turn a 'concept' into something that's perceptible, the artwork, for others. Each work of art is only one part of the concept, an approximation of whatever is in your head. The concept is a pyramid-shaped idea, emotion or message and each artform shines light on a different part of the pyramid. Literature is lowest: it can best desribe 'wordly' things like who did what for which reasons, it has logic and a huge number of 'tools' to describe the concept. Music is the opposite: without lyrics music reveals that part of the concept that cannot be explained with words. Literature can easily describe what you love about someone but music can describe why you love someone. Paintings are caught in the middle, and depending on the style can show the concept as we would see it but also the concept as we would feel it.

This top-part of the pyramid, the musical part, is where all fundamental 'universal' concepts reside. Not just emotions but concepts like 'justice' and 'evil' or 'God' and 'Humanity'. You can't easily describe the concept of justice with just words, hence all the hefty books on law. You can't define God properly with words, nor really paint Him (or Her, if applicable) but music can. Bach showed what Divinity is all about where the theologists failed. Chopin explained what 'longing' means where Freud wouldn't even know what to say.

In the same way, and I'm getting pretty OT probably, theologists, artsist and scientists are all about the same concept-filled pryamids. Scientists are the lowest part: they take the smaller processes apart and try to figure out how things work. How can species survive when life conditions change? Evolution! How can THC stimulate the hunger-feeling of people exposed to it? Well, because it inhibits certain neurons which acts as 'brake' on another part which now gets over-activated. Hundreds years ago science was on the winning hand, Newton and hsi friends figured out all important universal laws, Einstein added his magic to the list and science was making huge progress. The idea was that before too long everything could be figured out. Now, thanks to Quantum Theory we know that we're not even close to figuring things out. An object (say, a pencil) can either turn left or right, but not both simultanously, right? And an object is either here or there, but not both at the same time, right? Well, apparantly that only works for processes reasonably smaller then us, but when you go lower things don't work anymore. How? Why? Noone knows. The tiniest parts can be in two places at the same time and rotate both ways simultanously. The big picture just got a little larger.

On the top end you have the theologists. They don't really care for the how but all the more about the who part. The how is so unimportant that 'God works in mysterious ways' is a sufficient answer, which roughly translates to 'We don't know and it's not up to us to know'. If both sides could sit around a table and think some very interesting ideas could come up. [skipping that because it would take days to type it out]

Artists are cut in the middle. They don't typically know too much about String Theory nor do they feel the need to have the definite anwser of what their prefered deity is all up to. Where scientists and theologists try find the answers artists just accept there is whatever there is and express that. And in a sense that can lead to a much better understanding of Life, Universe and Everything.

So, done rambling. :lol:

I like it. :idea:

my younger brother is a math genius. one day he asked me how I work as an artist.
'do you have an idea or a solid vison of what the reslult of your painting will be? do you know what the finiashed thing will look like?" he explained. 'for me, as a mathmetician I have the answer. all I need to do is go through the process to prove it. I am always working with my goal in site.'
I responded bu saying that sometimes I have the finished painting in my minds eye. but my process is different from his. I know how to get there, but the there is constantly changing because of the things I experience along the way. for example, I may have a happy acident...that is, a brush mark may give me an idea. a dike could burst and a flood of ideas enter. often , they are better than my original minds eye. so the goal changes, but not so much the process.
he was astounded. 'how can you work towards something when you cannot see it?. how can you ever finish?'

I could only reply, I know when I know. we are worlds apart, he and I.

I totally understood both parts of that. As a computer geek the majority of my world is logical. So when I finally get to do what I want to do I have to change gears. It used to be very tough but it is something that my guitar teacher works with me on.

As an artist, when I play guitar I tend to space out. I relax and just let my hands wander. When I get really get into it my body sways back and forth in time. Its totally relaxation and like you said, a note or chord that I wasnt expecting might take me in a different direction. When I first started, I tried playing guitar with the logical side of me. "Dang, that was the wrong note.. ahh wrong timing.."

I think I am lucky in that I am naturally more emotional and artistic, and the logical is a learned behavior.

Well, I think I kept it mostly on topic.

Jim

great comments and insights Jim. this topic is wide ranging, growing, and well, speaks for itself of itself.
just what we are addressing.
I believe balance is a good thing. I know a very good guitar player. very technically adept. a perfectionist. watching him learn something is painful. I told him his ears work better than his mind. he should follow the ears and let the hands (muscle memory) follow along. the look I got... :twisted:

I'm like that too. In my teens I spend my free time programming, I've always wanted to do something in ICT. Then one day I woke up and was just incredibly fed-up with computers. But when I started music that part came alive again. I feed it with VST's and spectrum analyzers. :lol: Seriously, the whole music production side of it all really suits the logic-me. Creating a nice collection of sounds is just as much fun as using those sounds for songs.

I feed it with VST's and spectrum analyzers. :lol: Seriously, the whole music production side of it all really suits the logic-me.

Thats an excellent point. I never noticed it like that but I do really get into and enjoy the part of me that can tinker with the production stuff and put it all together. Some of it, like midi, I still dont understand but that might have more to do with laziness. I just know that I should be able to get my computer to help me play music and I dont know how to put all the pieces together to do that.

I took a brief dive into painting and drawing but I never seemed to be able to make it look on paper, the way I saw it in my head.

Jim

I am the complete opposite. I need spontinaeity and never to be bothered with dissection. I love the one take.
joining the computer world ,and especially recording digitally, is anathema to the type of person I am. hence the learning curve for new software is extremely steep, tedious and anger producing. I learn not so much from understanding , but more from repitition...when it comes to computer.
I am a total right brainer most times. however, I do know how to use a slide rule.

I'll post proper later, but this is well interesting. Just on a brief break from my weekly religious activities...liverpool's playing footie on tv (we're winning 1-0).

but I like one take stuff too, but also the idea of recording 'live' - i.e. whole band one take, like kind of blue and other old jazz records. alas, I can't arrange that, so track by track is a must. but the latter is also good for composing. and a lot of it is just getting things set up and 'ready to roll.'

interestingly, I find a lot of logic things also require a certain dash of creativity. I had to do formal logic in uni, and even there things are open to interpetation. I think my creative side served me as well as anything while I was being all intellectual.

now we have two points for Liverpool. :)