What's More Important Than Developing Technique?

[Bill Hankey]

Christopher,

Should I offer commentary without first considering what needs to be said, I might find myself lost for words. Your strong points that contain very logical reasonings, have caught my attention. I'm amazed how twisted an issue can become. Missing, are the immediate replies, and long pauses between responses that interrupts my trains of thought. A penchant for pauses style of writing, reveals much to the receiver.

Edited to delete wordings.

[Johnny Cox]

I'm done!

[Bill Hankey]

Johnny,

I was really hoping that you would expound further on the "TECHNIQUE" issue. Maybe tomorrow will yield some incentives to dig a little deeper on my part. Opera patrons are familiar with the popular trite quip used by the attendees. It isn't over until... I equate these short duration of exchanges to the opera clientele. Nothing ventured is nothing gained, and is one of the important facts of life.

[Michael Johnstone]

All these things have been well expressed but I think if you had to have only one of these various attributes - good musical ideas are by far the most important. Everything else will follow.

[Bill Hankey]

Michael,

Admittedly, I have no previous knowledge of how far the good neighbor policy extends beyond these Berkshire Hills, here in Western Massachusetts. It just comes as a natural occurence to prefer treating our neighbors as we would wish to be treated. These friendly exchanges create new hopes for expanding in our musical endeavors.. nothing more, nothing less. I had previously set out to make a strong point respecting personal technique experiences, that would significantly express a direct connection with successes in musical expressions. The sordidness of misinterpretation is a big disadvantage that will eventually weary the enthusiasm of certain individuals. I once worked for a man named Louie. One day he said to me, "It has taken me 30 years to learn these things, I will give what I've learned to you, if you will listen." In other words, the good neighbor policy was, and will always remain unchanged throughout our lives.

[Bill Hankey]

Extraordinary differences in opinions soon become fragmentary, and are tossed about like flotsam on a rocky coastline. Some disagreements, or misunderstandings directly related to the music of pedal steel guitars, are tossed about by participants who engage themselves, by presenting a few strong points yet to be proven. Ascertaining an individual's level of actual experiences with the workings of the pedal steel guitar, as a given, would be the first step taken to resolve musical issues. Trying to please audiences musically en masse, is a difficult challenge. The versatility of TECHNIQUE becomes a fortress to defend intellectual interests.

[J D Sauser]

In my opinion, most important, even over technique, yet often even completely forgotten:

Musicality!

... J-D.

[Franklin]

Johnny,

Nice answer........

Bill,

As I see it, The problem with all of these "What's more important" or "this vs that" threads lies in the question......"Which is more important?" implies that players should focus on one over the other....Its a mistake to imply through questions that perhaps there is no need to perfect one as much as the other....Accomplished musicians spend their whole life perfecting every aspect of musicianship......None is more important than the other and all facets of playing the instrument are used equally in music that reaches the listeners soul.........

Try picking the strings and muting them however you choose, acquire knowledge about everything you musically desire which becomes your personal musicality, and develop the skills to perform without any thought of how things are done, so that the only thing happening on stage comes from the heart.

Paul

[Charles Davidson]

MR. Cox you are so right. YOU BETCHA,DYK?BC.

[Bill Hankey]

Paul,

Your willingness to persevere and mount a determination at a level never witnessed before is exceedingly rare. Your name is symbolically associated with mastering the pedal steel guitar.

[Kevin Hatton]

Setting up near the bathroom is more important than technique. Ah yes Mr. F., the macro, the macro...
Many have forgotten the "musicality". I heard someone once ask "Will it go round in circles?" "Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?" That's my technique.

[Bill Hankey]

Seemingly, the crumbling block that hinders most, is to find oneself becoming intimidated by going through the process of not realizing the true potential within one's personal grasp. Talent is a very special, and wonderful gift that many take for granted outside of musical circles. I can see many advantages of associating oneself with others who share the same interests. To concentrate on shucking one bad habit per day, would be a way to begin. I believe that by disallowing intimidation of any sort to enter the music room, would be a good starting point for becoming more increasingly astute.

[Kevin Hatton]

[Bill Hankey]

My observations dictate that the majority of responses become more activated on this forum, if a message is brief and to the point. Long drawn out repeticious statements seem to weary responders. The other obstacle may stem from what appears to be harmless discrediting; figuratively.

[Barry Blackwood]

Long drawn out repetitious statements seem to weary responders.

Keen observation, Bill.

[Kevin Hatton]

Mr. Hankey, your hypothesis of the first order is not translating to a useful magnitude. I say this without contraception.

[Bill Hankey]

Kevin,

Is there something good that you may have to offer, that will keep me on a course of keeping with the good neighbor policy? Humor is fine, if it creates laughter. I can assure you, I'm not laughing.

[Kevin Hatton]

[Kevin Hatton]

Mr. Hankey, I read somewhere that laughter was good for the soul. Check out Mo's "technique" here. I'll bet it took him alot of years to develop it. Great right hand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScGPRsHSkaE
I'll bet he would have made a pretty fair steel player.

[Christopher Woitach]

Bill

Quote: "I'm amazed how twisted an issue can become. Missing, are the immediate replies, and long pauses between responses that interrupts my trains of thought. A penchant for pauses style of writing, reveals much to the receiver."

Sorry if this means I don't reply quickly enough - a) I'd pretty much said what I had to say and b) I was too busy practicing to check in! Developing technique, among other things...

Personally, I enjoy our occasional discussions - I try to conduct myself according to "good neighbor" policies in hopes that civility and fruitful discussion creates a harmonious environment of shared learning and the odd laugh or two.

Good practicing to you!

[J D Sauser]

Bill, I am sorry but your question(s) directed to me, if they were questions at all(?), in the form as you initially have chosen to present them (you have since deleted or completely changed that post), seem to by far surpass my linguistic abilities to be sure to fully understand them. Actually, I found your answer to my preceding post so difficult to digest, that, had it been conveyed to me in a "musical" form, instead of letters, words and sentences, I would probably be inclined to question the musicality or discard it as some form of "free Jazz", a musical style I am not particularly convinced of it's musicality either.

So, I hope you will excuse my delay in trying to address what I deem to be the core question at the beginning of your deleted post.

What do I mean with musicality?

I was at first inclined to suggest, you should google the word "musicality". But before I did, I decided to google the significance of the word myself first.

I am very glad I did, because the general consensus would seem that the word stands for:

.... sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music.

I personally however, would prefer my use of the word in my aforementioned post, to be understood more as:

2 - : the quality or state of being musical : melodiousness.

What I seem to observe a lot and object to -and I am not excluding some of my playing or musical results here- is, too much emphasis on chasing for "the tone", replicating XYZ's "style" or imitating his, her or their musical vocabulary, piecing elements (licks) together in ways in which they may not have been intended to, technique and even trickery.
A tendency to "make the tuning" make the music FOR them, just based on the idea of general positions, pedal and lever combinations, WHEREAS I believe that many would be better advised to go back to LISTENING first, become conscious of the underlining melody, theme and progression and thus musical message intended in each particular piece of music, and THEN ONLY try to play THAT and THEN only embellish... MUSICALLY and not just mechanical means readily at hand (or foot and knee).

Lets relate this to painting: Lets assume we want to paint the Mona Lisa, but we don't take time to look at her first, analyze her traits and characteristics... and instead, just start painting, with lots of "technique(s)", imitating Rembrandt's, Picasso's and Dali's styles all at once (more is more impressive! Right?) and using only the best, most expensive and strongest and shiniest colors.
What would the result be? Would it have made an artistic statement so big most everybody would know of it even centuries later?

As Jeff Newman is often quoted to have said: jest play the melody (first?).

This is NOT necessarily "simple" or lacking creativity (I would actually theorize, that this approach rather is the foundation to creativity) and thus a desirable discipline.

'nuff said?

... J-D.

[Mike Neer]

Bill, I haven't read the entire thread, but I'll just say that your writing style is an example of someone who has a lot of "chops" but not a lot of musicality. I am not condemning you, Bill (as I am one who loves the English language), but you don't know how to "play to the audience." Communication in music is much like communication in language--in your writing your ideas are obscured by the flaunting of your chops. I realize that this is what you take pleasure in, and that is OK with me, but your verbal Paganini-isms are killing the groove.

[CrowBear Schmitt]

What's More Important Than Developing Technique ?
bein' hip like the cat from the apple
well Joisy...

[Steinar Gregertsen]

Bill - you probably don't consider me an important part of your audience and probably don't care whether I understand your posts or not. But this forum is an international community and when/if some English speaking members have obvious problems reading your posts, can you imagine how it feels for someone, like me, who don't have English as their first language?

It's irritating, to put it mildly, because I really want to understand your posts since I have a strong feeling you actually know what you're talking about and have a lot to offer underneath all that "linguistic shredding". And I consider my English to be fairly good for a "foreigner"...

Now you can try to understand this:
Jeg skulle ønske du kunne skrive mye enklere, for da ville folk som meg, som ikke har engelsk som sitt morsmål, kunnet forstå hva du ønsker å kommunisere.

See how it feels?