Interesting afternoon with Victor Wooten

I'm currently away from home visiting Toronto for work, and I had teh weekend off, so I decided to drive around and see if I could find a music store.
Well, I did find one place that was open today (Sunday), and it so happens that they had a clinic going on. Cool.

The Clinic was being presented by Victor Wooten. 8)

He started by playing for a while, and just left everyone in the place with their jaws on the floor. He really is that good.
Here's a [url= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR6t47pV8Qc&eurl= ]video[/a] from one of his concerts. He played this piece at the clinic.

Then the next 2 and a half hours was him answering questions, demonstrating techniques and playing more songs.

I guess this is probably typical of how this sort of event goes (I've never been to one before).

I'm not sure whether I am more impressed with Wooten's musicianship or his thoughts on being a musician (and becoming a better one) versus being a (bass) guitar player.

One of the things I'll keep with me for some time goes something like this (heavily paraphrased by me):

Music is a language, right?
yup
Is it the language you're best at?
No, that'd be english
How young were you when you started to be good at english?
Ummm... 3 or 4 I could have a conversation, no problem
So in less than 4 years you were pretty good...How long have you been playing music? Are you as good at it as you were at english as a little kid?
'course not
Most of you took (or are taking) beginners music lessons. Did you take "beginners english speaking lessons"?
no
So, how did you learn to speak english?
By being immersed in it, surrounded by it. By having conversations with people who are better than me at talking.
So, listening to music as much as possible, and jamming (a musical conversation, right?) is probably going to help you be a better musician.

Then he went on to tell of his own childhood and his 4 brothers who all played music around him (and sat him in the middle of their jams with a little plastic Mickey Mouse guitar at 1 year old ).

----

There is a sample chapter of a book that Vic wrote on his website. He said he wrote the book as a fiction, but is spends a lot of time exploring these sort of ideas.

Very nice, smart, and down to earth guy.
It was an amazing stroke of luck to have stumbled across this event, and all in all a very cool afternoon.

A big regret at the moment is that I don't have my guitar with me in this hotel room.