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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
How to become a virtuoso
How to become a virtuoso
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7LimitJI
183 posts
Jun 11, 2010
5:42 AM
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Interesting article.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998414.htm
"The results were clear-cut, with little room for any sort of inscrutable God-given talent. The elite musicians had simply practiced far more than the others. "That's been replicated for all sorts of things -- chess players and athletes, dart players," says Ericsson. "The only striking difference between experts and amateurs is in this capability to deliberately practice." The group even determined the number of hours musicians must play to compete at the highest professional level -- about 10,000, the equivalent of practicing four hours a day, every day, for almost seven years."
"Psychologists found a second attribute in elite players that is less obvious than sheer hours of practice. While most of us think of practice as the repetition of tough spots (and this is how many young people do practice), elite musicians, they found, took a different approach. They were intensely self-critical, identifying weaknesses at an incredibly detailed level. They examined the pattern in which they put their fingers down, the way their muscles tensed -- and they continually experimented with ways to improve. In other words, they were not only musically creative, they were creative about solving problems."
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Those Dangerous Gentlemens Myspace
Youtube
Due to cutbacks,the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.
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kudzurunner
1562 posts
Jun 11, 2010
6:56 AM
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The 10,000 hours figure interests me. But just as important, I'm sure, is that point about being "creative about solving problems." When I'm seriously trying to improve, that's very much what I do. I feel as though I'm pushing an edge forward, slowly but surely. I'm extending some knowledge that I have. I know it's going to go slowly. It's about putting in the time.
These last couple of weeks, getting ready to play a couple of high-visibility gigs in Chicago during the festival (I'm in my hotel room right now), I've been deliberately trying to up my game. Now that my 10,000 hours are behind me, it doesn't take 4 hours a day to make improvements. It really only takes me one hour a day. I don't practice an hour a day unless I've got a gig upcoming. But when I put in that one hour a day, day after day, I'm always surprised by what begins to happen.
I think that daily practice, even a half hour a day, makes a real difference. It's like writing. If you get things flowing on a daily basis--work the reflexes, work the muscles--then when you're NOT playing or writing, the rest of the day, your unconscious is still churning away. It's doing most of the work--testing out patterns, mulling over problems, and sometimes solving them without any conscious work on your part. Then when you come back 24 hours later, you're right up to speed and you've actually taken a step forward, overnight.
I can put my harps away for a month, not touch them at all. When I first play them, I feel like a pretender. The harp feels wrong in my hands, in my mouth--no matter all those thousands of hours I've put in. After about fifteen minutes, it suddenly feels right again. If I come back the next day and play for an hour, I've got 90% of my best stuff back. I have to practice an hour a day for a whole week to get completely back to snuff. But if I keep going after that with the one hour a day, I start to improve.
I'm playing things these days that I couldn't play a year ago. Five years ago, I was convinced that my days of improving as a musician were gone. I had NO ambition on the harmonica. Nothing surprises me more than the way that the last three years, with YouTube and this website and especially the return of Satan and Adam and my birth as a one-man band, have rekindled my desire to grow.
Just put in the time. Four hours is not necessary, although if I were a young guy, in my teens or early twenties, and I wanted to make a great leap forward, I'd certainly try to do that. But even one hour a day of playing through various sorts of changes, playing various grooves, trying to improvise while keeping the beat, is extremely useful. Learn ONE NEW THING every day. It can be something very small. One new lick. One new use for the major seventh. One new rhythmic trick.
Last Edited by on Jun 11, 2010 6:57 AM
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barbequebob
902 posts
Jun 11, 2010
7:04 AM
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Man, that is 100% true and that describes just about every great musician I`ve ever met. It also rings true for me because I spent countless hours woodshedding and by nature, I`m a big time perfectionist and also very demanding, especially of myself and don`t tolerate "just good enough" which may be OK for being fairly competant enough to be in an open jam, but for pro level, that ain`t gonna cut it at all.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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EddieT
16 posts
Jun 11, 2010
7:20 AM
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Great article and true for things other than music. Thanks for posting.
My first Kung Fu school had a banner on the alter with a saying that I still remember.
"Practice, practice every day. Miss one day lose ten. No hurry, no slack. A well paced practice is the way to success." I don't know where my teacher got that from.
My wife and I were talking just yesterday about this same thing as well. She said how some people in martial arts, no matter how hard they try, just don't seem to "get it". I told her I didn't believe that was true. That it's not just how much, you practice, but HOW you practice. If you practice the wrong thing over and over how do you expect to get better?
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-Edward Tomaine
http://www.youtube.com/user/HungTaoChoyMei
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rbeetsme
276 posts
Jun 11, 2010
8:14 AM
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I agree with all of the above. However, there is something to be said for prodigies.
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Ev630
598 posts
Jun 11, 2010
8:16 AM
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Wiki:
In Music in the Western World by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, we find the following definition of virtuoso:[2]
"...a virtuoso was, originally, a highly accomplished musician, but by the nineteenth century the term had become restricted to performers, both vocal and instrumental, whose technical accomplishments were so pronounced as to dazzle the public."
So I'd say a virtuoso is the exception rather than the rule.
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waltertore
649 posts
Jun 11, 2010
8:23 AM
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I will never be in this class because I have no interest with what doesn't interest me. A virtuoso has to be able to play most anything. In the very begining I did a lot of what was described, but once I got an E chord down on the guitar and could suck and blow without getting dizzy, I went off on a purely discovery journey. From there the piano just made sense right off because everything is in front of you. the drums were just a natural extension of my rhythm. My playing is now light years beyond my early days, but not via the op approach. My approach has been to follow what attracts me and continues to be one of discovery and letting my natural rhythms transpose to instruments. When I stumble onto a new thing, I ride it till it stops, which is usally pretty quick. I then forget about it. I have learned it will come around a little more together in its own time, and in more time, it will become another groove in my bag. To stop everything and force this new thing until I get it, takes me away from the joy of music. The more I participate on forums that discuss these subjects, the more I realize I do it a different way. that is why i post this stuff. If there is another person out there doing it this way, or begining and being pulled this way, it may help them feel good about it and not so lonely. My journey has been a lonely one in many ways. Most musicians I associated with were in the renknowned class and learned completley different than me. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Jun 11, 2010 8:33 AM
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Nastyolddog
898 posts
Jun 11, 2010
8:29 AM
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Would a vertuoso have to keep practising or learning?
if he has to keep practising for ever learning new things,
that would lead me to beleive that he isn't a vertuoso?
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Nastyolddog
900 posts
Jun 11, 2010
8:59 AM
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a true master is a perpetual student.
Bingo Bro thats where I'm comeing from:)
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7LimitJI
184 posts
Jun 11, 2010
9:19 AM
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As soon as I've learnt something the challenge has gone and I move on to something new.
The length of time taken to learn varies immensely.
I get 1.5 hrs practice in the car commuting to and from work. I rarely practise at home now.
I've had a few discussions with people who say they couldn't learn an instrument and how lucky and talented I am.
I try and convince them to take up an instrument and tell them,the more I practise, the more talented and lucky I become :o)
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Those Dangerous Gentlemens Myspace
Youtube
Due to cutbacks,the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.
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Nastyolddog
901 posts
Jun 11, 2010
9:38 AM
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Do Psychologists think?
10,000 hours to learm an instrument
or be a vertuoso at just one instrument:(
lets say i started to learn 4 instruments at age 20 there are those of us who play more than one,
i would be in my 60's depending on how many hours i put in a day if i was real slack maybe 70 80 years Old:(
Psychologists are anul wakkers:(
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Tuckster
576 posts
Jun 11, 2010
9:43 AM
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I've often wondered if the big name pros were content where they're at or if they still were seeking to improve in some respect. Adam=thanks for answering that one for me. I would hazard a guess that all well known players feel this way.In fact it's one of the reasons they're at the top.
For the past maybe 6 months,I've had a lot of trouble making myself practice. I just could not find any focus. I just got in a new band and have to learn new songs. Most of them don't have harp,I have to figure out something to play. Might be a horn line,piano,guitar whatever.This has seemed to reenergize me. I like the challenge,I guess.It seems I can't practice unless I have something specific to work on. I can't just sit and practice scales.
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scojo
14 posts
Jun 11, 2010
9:59 AM
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@Adam: Best of luck in Chicago!!!
Regarding this thread, I think there is more than one way to skin a cat. For some, it's poring over each and every weakness until it's eliminated, then finding new weaknesses to eliminate. For others, it's more like the Zen/Walter Tore way (and the evidence, in his case, speaks for itself). I don't think there's a right answer for everyone.
This leads into a larger point for me, which is directed towards many of the arguments on this forum. There's a danger in taking one's own experience and assuming it applies to everyone. Definitive statements always kill my attention span, unless they are testable as scientific hypotheses. Almost everything else is subject to subjective conjecture.
In other words, sometimes a little chilling out is in order. :)
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harpnoodler
61 posts
Jun 11, 2010
10:17 AM
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I re-started re-starting harp a week ago as my life has begun to slow down --my mate started full-time school and we adopted a six-day-old baby, both 13 months ago-- and with 2 other kids and a dog it's been tough to find practise time/space, peace of mind. These two things happened just as I resolved to get my harp-playing in shape to start hitting local blues jams...
Ten days ago I collected about 50 of the best harp tunes I own into a playlist and have been listening to them on the way to and back from work and at work when I'm doing something I don't need my whole brain for.
I'm relieved to read Adam: "When I first play them, I feel like a pretender. The harp feels wrong in my hands, in my mouth--..."
I may have put in only about 1000-2000 hrs on my harps, so its a relief to hear that "pretender" feeling can happen to a well-seasoned pro. Man, I felt so discouraged when I started back, like my lips were all mushy and I could't hit chords or warbles or bends with precision...
So I started off with just long notes exercises up and down the harp, trying to relax and just hear the notes. Then simple chugs in-out. Then octaves and 3-hole splits, long and slow and gentle. Then long notes w/ vibrato, really listening and just trying to relax.
I've been doing this a couple of days now and I feel a lot better about my harps now, like I don't have to put them them in a pile, douse 'em with gas and howl at the moon in a ritualistic death ceremony as I set them on fire...
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AV8R
10 posts
Jun 11, 2010
10:35 AM
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I've been playing every day for 7 months now, anywhere from 30 minutes to sometimes 3 hours/day. Initially I skipped Adam's really easy lessons (Oh Susanna, Bittersweet Boogie,, etc) because I thought I did pretty well with the advanced beginner stuff. (Mojo 1.0, Juke 1.0, Going Down South, etc)
But after HCH, where I heard more than one instructor emphasize getting the basics (keeping the groove and the melody) down pat first, when I got home I ordered the "easy" stuff just to make sure I hadn't skipped anything.
Jeez, was I surprised to find that playing "Oh Susanna" PERFECTLY ain't that easy! Try it. It's taken me a lot of practice. And when I do think I have it down, I challenge myself to play it perfectly twice and so far I haven't been able to do it. So anyway, where previously I was "practicing" along with blues jam tracks and making the changes OK, I realized this was just letting myself practice sloppy. I needed the discipline that playing a known melody requires.
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barbequebob
903 posts
Jun 11, 2010
10:49 AM
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Even with a prodigy, if they're too lazy to put in ALL of the very NECESSARY time to woodshed, thye will always get left behind by others who are willing to do whatever it takes to get where they want and the lazy ones just stand still.
I haven't met a single pro musician who is satisfied and doesn't want to improve no matter how big their name was/is. The ones who want it the most will never let ANYTHING stand in their way to reach their goals and as soon as they've reached one goal, they go on to another one.
It's like anything else, and if you get too satisfied with anything, you get too complacent and you just don't learn anything.
Virtuosos most definitely have to practice, but at some point, they don't necesarily need to have the long hours, but use their time at it in a more highly focused way wheras most people, it tends to be rather haphazard.
You do have to have DRIVE to keep focused 24/7 and if you don't, you just hit a plateau and never go beyond where you are. What does all of these things require?? Something too many players often don't have enough of and that's DISCIPLINE.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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bluzlvr
371 posts
Jun 11, 2010
2:43 PM
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I have found myself so frustrated sometimes trying to learn something that I want to trash my instrument only to come back later when I'm feeling better and nail it right away.
Even those woodshedding sessions that seem like a waste of time can reap benefits.
(Although I STILL can't do an overblow.)
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http://www.myspace.com/jeffscranton
Last Edited by on Jun 11, 2010 2:45 PM
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oldwailer
1276 posts
Jun 11, 2010
2:49 PM
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This thread made me sleepy--I need a nap--then I'll practice. . .:-)
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gene
492 posts
Jun 11, 2010
2:52 PM
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I've read something about that. Maybe Adam said somrthing. There's a name for it, but I don't remember what it is.
Anyway, you can be practicing or studying something, and although you don't feel any progress, your subconcious mind is still putting it together for you as you rest....Something like that.
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Jim Rumbaugh
233 posts
Jun 11, 2010
3:04 PM
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(forgive this repeat of an old quote)
There is a diference between playing the harp and practicing the harp.
(I still play, but I try to practice as much as I can.)
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Chickenthief
40 posts
Jun 12, 2010
10:36 AM
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Choice thread, great posts, class A1 sober, practical advice
explained succinctly by skilled players with diverse experience.
Just what I needed today.
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Ev630
601 posts
Jun 12, 2010
10:55 AM
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Howard Levy is a virtuoso. Kim Wilson is a virtuoso. Toots is a virtuoso. Apart from that, I'm racking my brains to think of anyone who fits the category.
Unless we've gone back to the earlier meaning of the word.
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isaacullah
1017 posts
Jun 12, 2010
12:44 PM
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The time thing is interesting. MAL must've read this thing, since he's got his own version of the 10K project thing going on. Look how fast he's gotten good. Me, I'm at a little over three years, and after just doing some rough sums, I'd say I've probably put in round about 1000 hours at this point, maybe a bit more. So if I continue at this pace, I'll be brilliant in 27 years, when I will be 58 years old. Not to shabby, but if I'd have started at, say, 10 years old, I'd be on the home stretch! Actually, when you are a kid you ain't got nothing BUT time to spend playing harp, so I'd probably already be a virtuoso! :)
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View my videos on YouTube!"
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Aussiesucker
638 posts
Jun 12, 2010
8:24 PM
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Very interesting stuff. I'm sure there are real exceptions either way ie some make it in under 5000 hours wheras others 10,000+ . And it all depends on who we refer to as being virtuoso's.
What I have noticed in learning something tough is that often the daily practice of it becomes a chore & I start 'hating' the piece & my improvement stalls or goes backwards. I have found that if I shelve the piece for a few weeks and work on something completely different, then when I come back to the tough piece my progress is almost immediate.
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Andrew
1010 posts
Jun 13, 2010
4:14 AM
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I don't understand it. All you talentless people devoting 10,000 hours to practising in order to become harp virtuosos. Why don't you spend that time becoming president of the USA instead?
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Kinda hot in these rhinos!
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Ev630
606 posts
Jun 13, 2010
4:18 AM
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Some of us have, but prefer to post under pseudonym.
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Andrew
1011 posts
Jun 13, 2010
4:34 AM
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I guessed that Buddha was George W Bush, but I didn't rumble you, Ev!
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Kinda hot in these rhinos!
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Ev630
607 posts
Jun 13, 2010
4:53 AM
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Well Andrew, if you had been paying attention, I had dropped a few clues in my posts, for example:
"After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, harp care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land."
"Buddha is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be OK."
"Tongue blocking and puckering are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
Like I always say, it's better to listen for the CHANGE than to play anything and HOPE you get it right.
Okay, I'm off to get walked by my Portuguese fish eating dawg.
Last Edited by on Jun 13, 2010 4:55 AM
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kudzurunner
1567 posts
Jun 13, 2010
5:13 AM
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@Walter: I think I actually come at all this from your direction. I was never very good at practicing the things I was SUPPOSED to practice. For example, any self respecting harp guy really should have some decent game on the big chromatic in 3rd position. I enjoy listening to good players go at it--Johnny Sansone, for example, at Hill Country Harmonica; William Clarke when I saw him live way back when--but it just never called to me and said, "Practice me." Similarly, I never really cared about practicing 16th note runs until the past two years or so. Back in 2000, Jason showed me one or two fast 16th note riffs and I thought they were cool and filed them away until two years ago, when suddenly I got interested in them and determined to start upping my game in that direction. Now, with the help of my metronome, I've been practicing that sort of thing daily and it's rekindled my interest.
But here's the thing: I've got other obsessions, and they suck the energy away. Between 1995 and 2000, I wrote a 450 page dissertation and a 450 page memoir while I was a full-time grad student commuting 65 miles a couple of days a week AND playing gigs on the weekends. I was playing a lot, studying and writing a lot, but I wasn't interested in practicing. All my unconscious energy was going elsewhere.
In 2000 I suddenly got re-obsessed with table tennis, which had been my boyhood passion. I played 2-3 hours at a NYC club almost every day. I lived, breathed, dreamed, and obsessed over table tennis. I traveled to tournaments. I went to a training camp with the former U.S. champion, Dan Seemiller. I made new friends. I went to the U.S. Open two years in a row and one year I made the semis of the under 1100 event (TT works with ratings; 2800 is the world champ; 1100 is pretty low), where the best 10-year old in the country killed me in the semifinals. But it was a U.S. Open semifinals, regardless, and I was happy. (It didn't seem fair that he had so many parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters yelling him on in Chines while I had nobody, but them's the breaks.) No matter how much I practiced, obsessed, lived & breathed it, though, I just couldn't improve my rating very much. But I had a hell of a lot of fun. With TT, I was like some harp players. The really good guys awed me, fascinated me. I WANTED to play that well. I loved watching them play. And I could feel some of their elegance, just a whiff, when I played my very best. I had good strokes. But I just couldn't quite get there, and it wasn't going to matter how much time I put in. I had some talent, but not real talent.
In 2002, after moving to Mississippi, I lost interest in table tennis and became re-obsessed with distance running. I lost 15 pounds and slowly, slowly began to lower my 10K and 5K times. Over the past 8 years I've run about 150 races (they're all notated in a running log: date, time, pace per mile, etc.) and lowered my 10K from a miserable 47:10 to (last year) 40:42, which in age-graded terms translates to a little faster than my PR of 35:49 back in the early 80s. I sweated, literally, for every second of that lowering. When I first started on the comeback trail, I improved a fair bit--down to 43:00 or so--but then things slowed. So I kept buying running books, kept reading different running websites, kept obsessing and trying to figure out how I might optimize. I also put in the time: 40 or 50 miles a week, every week. 15 miles every Sunday morning, most Sunday mornings, even when I was traveling. I had more talent vis a vis running than I did vis a vis table tennis--just enough to win my age group in local races and enough to place in the big regional races. I dreamed about my age-group competitors; about how to beat them. And I began gaining ground on them, and even beat a couple of them--guys who used to not have to worry about me were starting to have to worry about me. I occasionally picked up a harp between 2000 and 2006, but rarely practiced or played gigs. I just wasn't into harp that much. But I ran like a man obsessed.
THAT is how to improve. And that is the energy and the M.O. that drove me, through the 1980s, to improve on harp. Just acknowledge your obsession and do your best to let your passion guide you. Don't let anybody tell you you HAVE to practice, or HAVE to play a particular style. But don't fool yourself into thinking that you can half-ass it and become the best you were meant to be.
These days, trying to figure out how to become a one-man band, I listen to music very differently. When I'm driving long distances, I put on CDs and say, "How would I carry that groove with my feet?" I've still only got some primitive grooves. So there's a lot of discovering and figuring out to do. Eventually I'll get some drum DVDs and see what I can adapt. I'm trying to let my passion guide me.
Here one last thing to think about: If I hadn't been utterly obsessed with lowering my 10K time (and half marathon time), I wouldn't have put in a two-hour run every Sunday morning, week in and week out, year in and year out. In fact, if somebody had told me I HAD to do that, and if I hadn't had the specific long term goal that I had, it would have been something like torture. It would have been punishment--as much on the mental level as the physical level. But once I had the goal, it was purposeful work and a way of expressing, honoring, my passion. So every minute of the run, or at least many of those minutes, had meaning. And even the "hard" minutes that inevitably cropped up, where I really didn't want to be running, became part of that warrior's purposeful endeavor. I remember one long run I took while training for a marathon in the July heat of Mississippi. I'd run 20 miles the Sunday before. The following Sunday I tried to do it again, in humid mid-70s weather. I ran out 10 miles, then back 5 miles, at which point I was completely spent. I sat back against a bridge--the familiar 5-mile point--and drank some water. I had nothing left. My heart rate, according to my HR monitor, was showing that I really had bonked. Glycogen gone; I'd hit the wall. But I shuffled another 4.8 miles at 10 minute pace. At 19.8 miles I just stopped and walked it in. Now, there is no marathoner in the world who wants to put "19.8" in their log book. You want 20 miles. But I just didn't have it. I gave it everything I had, and then I quit in disgust. But I still think back on that run, and chuckle when I do. I found out exactly where the bottom of the barrel was. The pain and disgust and complete and total exhaustion were a good thing to know about. My passion got me there. But I'd also been foolish to run 20 milers on back-to-back weekends; that was part of the problem. Disasters have a lot to teach you. And if you can find a way of chuckling at them later, you've learned one of the things they have to teach you.
So a very good way for a developing player to guide his (or her) passion is to come up with a medium-term goal: in six months, I'm going to get up at a jam session and blow people away. In order to do that, I need to put in one hour a day at least six days a week between now and then. Then you just put in the time, and try to improve incrementally every day. You try to prepare yourself for the actual thing you want to do, so you go to that jam session with a notebook and make lists of the songs people are doing, then find them on iTunes and make sure you learn them and play along with them. I used to practice my kick at the end of 15 mile runs, visualizing Ramaala and Tergat kicking at the end of the NYC marathon. I don't make a fetish of visualization, but a bit of that is a good idea. Boys on skateboards do a lot of that. Frank Shorter and Steve Prefontaine used to take long crazy winter runs in the Colorado mountains and say to each other, "Nobody is working harder than us right now."
But, as I say, honoring your dreams of triumph and your obsessional energies isn't the only way to have fun with the harmonica. If that crazed stuff is in you, you need to figure out how to work it, but if it's not, that's OK, too. That's why I tell developing players who write to me, "Keep having fun." And that's where Walter and I see eye to eye. Keep having fun, whether it's lighthearted fun, deep and meaningful fun, or fresh exploratory fun.
Last Edited by on Jun 13, 2010 5:36 AM
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waltertore
654 posts
Jun 13, 2010
6:08 AM
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Adam: Thanks for sharing all that info! I could tell of similar experiences with martial arts, playing, harp, guitar, piano, the 1 man band, running, creating businesses for my special education high school students, building/flying r/c sailplanes, running, and bicycle riding. The common thread is the drive to that goal. I am driven to get to mine. For years it was getting the music business to acknowledge spontobeat. I spent tons of energy on this. It was not a success, but like you 19.8 mile run (I had a similar 100 mile bike ride in august texas heat). I find the goal is such a drive that only way to get there is to do it with all you have, all your waking hours. Whether it is reached is really not that important to me as the journey going there. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but I explain it furhter down. That competitive thing in me is strong. It was so strong when I was younger I scared off a lot of people. Thankfully time has mellowed it alot.
Currently my biggest drive is to make good sounding recordings. Again, like all my endeavors, I started with no training or info. I just plugged away. For me the discovery is such fun. It is like I just found a new universe. The one man band runs a close second. I started it seriously 6 years ago. I didn't want to sound like the current crop of 1 man bands. I wanted to sound like I sound with my real trio. I still am heavy on this goal.
I think people sometimes get so overwhelmed by goals, that they feel a failure. For me goals are just things that get me excited and carry me through the lulls of uninspired times. This I have learned via time, and the hard way, like your 19.8.... I am now coming at it differently. The goal is a goal, but I will not kill myself to get there anymore. Still the drive is strong. Kind of like being able to enjoy the journey instead of always being away from the present moment because the goal isn't reached. The old martial art saying in action is finally with me - a guy comes in a dojo and says - how long will it take me to master your system if I practice 3 hours a day? Master says 10 years. He responds how about if I practice 8 hours a day. Master says 20 years. Guy says what? Master says you have one eye here and one on the goal. Bring both here and you are doing it right. Live in the moment and enjoy it. That is what I am finally really getting!
I live life this way, as you do(correct me if I misinterpretued your post). I am borderline learning disabled and writing is a real chore for me. You write beautifully. I am better with my mouth for communication :-) I look forward to meeting you someday. Just got a phone call to show our house in an hour. We just bought a 2nd home and are trying to sell this one asap. With 2 big dogs that shed and a cat, we got a lot of vacuming to do. See you! Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Jun 13, 2010 6:21 AM
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