Art, Music, and the Guitar

I sort of fell into this blog; I knew I wanted to do a blog on music for a while and so a few weeks ago I just began and posted a short history of Western Classical Music. I followed that up with a discussion of the Incomplete, Dominant, Minor 9^th, Chord. When a friend of mine commented that the latter post might be over the heads of most readers, I told him that I hadn’t yet defined my voice or my audience. Maybe that’s a good thing? We shall see…

Musical thinking is a term I use with my students and colleagues as a replacement for the more common terms theory and harmony. Theory sounds to me too theoretical and harmony seems to exclude rhythm and melody. For a while I used the anachronistic term solfeggio, but that term was just too anachronistic. I like the term musical thinking, for music is the result of musical thinking.

Music exists first in the musical sphere and then manifests in the physical sphere. Andre Segovia was suggesting this when he said, “What the world does not need is another guitar player; what the world does need are musicians and artists who happen to play the guitar.”  A guitar player’s consciousness is absorbed in the Physical Sphere; a musician’s consciousness is absorbed in the Musical Sphere, and the artist’s consciousness is absorbed in the Artistic Sphere.

An artist may create art through music and music may be created on the guitar. It could be said that an artist is absorbed in the Artistic Sphere and then communes with the Musical and Physical spheres. A guitar player is absorbed in the Physical Sphere and, at best, communes with the Musical and Artistic Spheres. It is my experience that guitar players can be very impressive, but that after a while I start to get the feeling that they speak beautifully but really have nothing to say. I leave the concert impressed, but not changed.

I remember how it was when leaving Segovia’s concerts; people were smiling, there was a feeling of tangible joy in the group and I wondered if it had anything to do with how Segovia had become a master musician—had mastered music by serving music—by making his life the servant of music?

Indeed, Segovia was an artist who painted not with pigment and canvas, but with sound and rhythm. Segovia created art and was a great musician and was also a great guitar player. Listen to the early recordings; hear how he controlled both silence and sound and time. It is my opinion that no one who has ever played the guitar did it better.