The Art Of Guitar by Craig Smith

The Guitar and I

I began playing the guitar at about the age of five, preceding this with playing the ukulele from around two years of age. My grandfather and mother both played guitar... so this was an easy introduction to the instrument and it's sound. Who would of ever thought that this would become a lifelong activity... let alone an actual. In those days, even as today... playing music was at most a hobby, or a sideline one might have. However, it didn't turn out that way at all as you have probably noticed.

Around seven or eight I started taking actual guitar lessons, at a music studio roughly forty miles away from my home. My mother would drive me every Saturday to the lessons... which were "real" guitar/music education instructions. I went through seven or more consecutive books of a standard guitar system by Mel Bay, which was about the only such series of guitar methods available at the time. It wasn't easy... it was a complete music on guitar study and music developmental program that you had to follow exactly every step of the wry to progress from one level to the next. However, it was impressive and trained me in the true Art Of Guitar.

As years passed I continued to study guitar at extended and higher levels and play music always as just about the only thing I did aside from school, eating and sleeping. At around fifteen I was already active in the local music scene playing at school dances and even performing on television regularly. All this seemed just natural, and at the time neither I or my parents ever imagined this to be anything more than just adolescent play and activity... things were about to change though as I became more noticeable and recognized in not on the local front, but gradually to a larger, wider audience of music listeners. I had really gotten myself into something much deeper than expected... and it kept on going.

Soon it became aware to myself that I was always to play music on the guitar... and not seek any other type of job or work outside of the music business. This included not just playing guitar, and singing... which incidentally I did always at the time, but forgot to mention above... but also included continuous further study on the instrument, writing songs and other music... as well as professional recording music of my own and the ongoing promotion of my own music career.

During these years... I became aware of aspects pertaining to my instrument the guitar, that were not just about the playing and performance of music as most people view guitar or it's players in the popular world. In the study of music and the guitar's historic legacy... an extensive one to say the least... I became more cognoscente of a very deep and historic past of this instrument. The more I read and worked in this direction it became known that this is not just one of, group of instruments called the string family... but the origin of that entire family of such string instruments. Unbelievable as it might seem... but true never the less... this is the Real Story... about "The Art Of Guitar"

More on this to come... Craig

The Use of Creative Energy

The Sound Must Be Set Free From The Strings of The Guitar... As The Sculpture Must Be Released From The Stone...

And, so it is with music from the strings of the guitar that are tuned to the five tone Pentatonic Scale... the origin of all scales. The tuned strings of the guitar... contain a waiting potential for the inspiration of the player to apply his or her own physical energy to. This potential is ancient, since the first sound was heard on the planet by any living thing ...It Has Been With Us from The Dawn Of Mankind.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed... it is only exchanged, transformed or transferred to another place, this is the application of the creative process in the fields of all art... and especially music because with music the energy is still experienced in an active state.

As it was so aptly stated by Michael Angelo... "the sculpture is contained within the stone" and all all that is needed is for someone with the proper tools to release, or free it from it captive... frozen state. This is so also with music and the guitar, as with the the stone of the sculptor... the tuned guitar strings also contain potential in a form... just waiting for someone to come along and set them free. Yet the artist must have both the physical tools, the training with correct techniques... and last but not least inspiration... to make the exchange or transference of energy to the solid piece of material, or the guitar's the strings. It is in this process of transferring or transformation that all creativity comes to be A Reality... able to be experienced by those fortunate enough to discover it. Perhaps those who do not discover it... are essentially beneath "The Creativity Curve", incapable of seeing the true depth or worth of any artist's work.

In all music, as it is an art form in action... the ease of this process of creation and the results are always enhanced if the artist is trained to use those techniques proven to work and this also true with guitar. The techniques for guitar are no different than those studied and learned for any skill... they are quite specific and cannot allow for much variation. If someone someone really wants to learn and play easily... the correct positions and movements of fingers, hands and muscles must be within certain specs... if not completely exact. Being that the guitar and it's ancestors going back thousands of years and are the origin of all string instruments, even the piano. And, that the guitar's tuning to the ancient tones of the Pentatonic Scale, has been uncovered on other musical instruments as far back as 35,000 to 50,000... and in locations covering our entire Earth... we need to pay very close attention to the already established techniques available, and not wander from the path of truth we have available in our hands. We cannot do something just anyway we want to... without experiencing consequences.

Craig Smith

Music Is Energy In Action

Music is like clouds... music is like water in the sea... or a river, it's always moving. In this way music is like life itself... animated always... until like life, it ends. This symbolism of music could be more significant than we might think, perhaps it may be that when the music stops... so will all life on earth cease to exist.

By it's very nature of movement... energy in action... music is the supreme "Non Concretized Form" in the universe. In fact, within music lies the universe in miniature... continuously changing... evolving into a new shape every moment, a New Sound Sculpture made from nothing but vibrations floating through the air.

Craig Smith

How You Hear The Sound

Playing Music is all about "How You Hear The Sound"; in your head... and coming from your instrument as you play. The essence of music is being able to play as easily and as naturally as breathing in and out, as simply as speaking. This is true with all music performance, on all instruments... and of course in this case "The Guitar". It's all about The Inspiration (the breathing in) and Applying The Skills one has learned (the breathing out)... and not about trying to copy the exact sound of someone else's performance, or always reading music just as it appears on paper or elsewhere, in one form or another... as for example on some website in today's world. It is also Not About Memorizing Songs, but about "Just Being Aware of The Sound"... and following where it leads you. Letting the music guide you from within and discovering the creative world that is yours to explore... and experience who you are as a player.Sound is like a magnet, or like the force of gravity itself.

We hear and experience the sound of music like a compelling invisible road map, with various directions in which we can travel. The notes and harmonies in all music can have multiple agendas that lead us "according to the way we perceive them", and this perception differs in each individual as well as also may differ each time within ourselves. It offers to the listener, and especially those who play an instrument, new journeys to take and discoveries to make as it takes us on a magical tour through the landscape of sound. Music offers us choices of routes one can travel through this Landscape of Sound, alternatives to travel like a road map or a GPS device. As we listen we are presented with an endless "Soundscape of Creativity" leading the listener/player to uncover and new environments in sound that are within us alone, and can only be revealed if one is brave enough to travel that uncharted path music takes us on.

Incidentally music with lyrics restricts much of this imagination and creativity... conforming one to an idea expressed in the words not allowing the mind to explore as much of The New Territory hidden within ourselves.Words lead us generally in only one direction, missing much... if not all the other stops along the way. Instrumental Music is an open ended journey where we decide which way we go. I's sort of like Dorothy in "The Wizard Of OZ", she comes to four corners, a crossroad... and is given suggestions by the Scarecrow... by speech (words). then she follows The Yellow Brick Road, and there is turning back, no other choices.This is however how all new music, with or without lyrics, comes to be... it is discovered by those who after learning their skills by practicing all the right moves finally are able to uncover a hidden the wealth of natural resources that exist within their own minds. That's right, "within their own minds"; the music all comes from individual inspiration... not from somewhere "out there, but from somewhere in there.

While in the beginning we do generally listen to and copy what others have done, to learn and develop our techniques... we cannot stay in that comfortable place for to long if we really want to enjoy music as it was intended to be. We Must Learn To Fly Solo, venture into the unknown world of what is within ourselves. We need be set free... to discover what is within us, and has been there all along.

Craig Smith

The Natural Heritage Of Music

We all enter this world complete, with a brain... The Processor and Operating System, and also with a Natural Heritage of Our Culture of Origin... The Programming for that system. From the beginning everything is in place all ready to be used. All we have do is unpack the box and start using the equipment inside, that is... inside us. With this, let it be said... as with any equipment, we have to not be in the box itself, but just like using a new computer... outside looking in. Letting any piece of equipment to remain in the box makes it unusable... and nothing changes... things do not grow... and we access nothing from the wealth of information and applications that we have available. Things remain at status quo... still, un-moving, in a state close to that of death itself, No Movement, the basic indicator of the non-existence of life, as that of a piece of stone.

We were not born to be a solidified mass of nothingness, with no objectives or purpose in this thing we call life. We were all put on this planet to be part of the planet's own life energy field; and interact with all things around us in creative ways which allow for survival. We are to be using Our Natural Bio-Computer, The Brain, to help the world and all that is a part of who we are keep moving forward in the endless Procession Of Creativity Unfolding for the betterment of the whole including all mankind.

This is our reason for "being"... that's why we are Human "Beings". As I have previously said "We Are The Creators... We Are Man". However, are we really alive... acting in the responsible way that we were put here for, or are we just standing there "still"... not much different than that image of death itself... caught in the Death Trap of non-purpose without any direction. Trapped in the conformity of those who are our jail keepers, our slave masters?

The answer is NO. We ascribe to and follow these almost dead "call them zombies... perhaps" beings that make us believe this is the way it is to be. But, we are not actually enslaved or trapped, we hold the keys to our imprisonment... all we must do is unlock the cell of illusion that others have made us believe that this is all there is. Once again, "We Are The Creators... We Are Man": And we have all the equipment and natural resources within us to free ourselves from the "Daymare" of waking life and move into the World Of Our Own Reality... and Live Our Dreams. Life is not that, that we are being told it is... Life Is Freedom and Continuous Movement. We must create the world we want to live in and the life we want to be ours.

Life is like a river, or a natural spring... it is meant to be flowing... not dammed up, or diverted in it's course. And, as we so often seen... water so diverted or blocked frequently causes devastating changes to an environment, turning what was once a green pasture into a desert... making life no longer the same, or maybe even totally non-existent... or... Dead.

Craig Smith

Creating "Rhythms Of The Gods"

When I first released "Rhythms Of The Gods", in 2003... it immediately became a hit in the early days of internet music downloads. I was very surprised because of instead of recording it using one of my thirty some odd high end guitars, I was just fooling around with a guitar that was a beat up piece of junk purchased for $2.00 at a Flea Market. When the recording was finished I was still not convinced I should even present it to my people at Rhythms Of Life Records, but I did. Then within days after it was out there for sale it was a success.

How ridiculous... I thought, with no planning or sketch of what I was even going to play, and with nothing but a few simple chords and a rhythm enhanced by a drum loop... it was really almost disgusting. To think that I would ordinarily spend perhaps days composing a piece, and then carefully select just the guitar I thought was correct to pull the off... and to discover that all that planning/decision making was perhaps unnecessary. And; additionally that instrument... a reject in the world of guitars, what would be next. This made me take a second look at my previous methods and choices in my work, and doing a 180 degree turn as I proceeded into the future.

So here it is... as a single MP3 download "Rhythms Of The Gods", Re-mastered and with it's own cover art showing the image of a hand... which is after all where our history of all we have created as human beings began... with our "Tool Using Hand"... unique to us humans, we have continuously created and produced billions of things. We are creators of our world as we know it... and music is just another creation of our species.

The music is available Worldwide on an almost "ungodly" number of Digital Music Sites... including iTunes. I cannot even begin to keep track of them as seem to multiply day by day... All that can be said that with 7.5 Billion people on Earth, and with probably even 1% having smart phones, capable of music downloads... don't let any fool tell you that the internet has destroyed the music business... just the opposite. Thanks Internet.

Please check with your favorite music service, or also visit one of my meager, self made websites... such as ~ http:www.indieartistmusc.com

And... Just Enjoy Life and Music.

Creativity... A basic human Right

We all come into this life with an immediate abundance of ability to be the "Next Big Thing" in any area of life we should so desire to explore. We are born into the Natural World of Creativity... with all the connections in place, like those of the processors and programs of a brand new computer, just waiting to be presented with ideas and images from the outside that will take us on an inner journey of imagination to discover who we really are and were meant to become to the world. Then... it starts to happen... The Shut Down, like perhaps a computer virus that takes over from the outside of our true self... and slowly... bit by bit... piece by piece blocks, controls and destroys all the great things we could have uncovered and offered to the rest of the world.

It seems almost deliberate, as if those around us in our lives... from family, friends, teachers and later others in our working environment... everyone, everywhere has taken an oath based on perhaps the fear of change, a pledge to stop us from the uniqueness of ourselves. It's as if they want us to follow a specific road map... or guidance system that "keeps them safe from us". Why is this... What is it that they are really so in fear of... is the fear really based on their concern that we will be better off by complying, or that they will be less threatened. This is the question and a dilemma for ourselves as to how we can not be infected by this virus of insecurity when they are the carriers of it. It seems to be their sole purpose only is to take over our lives, destroy our potential of individuality... and protect themselves from the fear of any type of change. Just like the pathology of any infectious disease, or a computer virus... We Are Gradually Taken Over To Become "THEM", and serve only their wants and needs. How can we protect ourselves, how can we immunize our creative mind to this epidemic of fears that is focused on us so that to comply and do only what the program allows.

Have we forgotten... We Are The Creators... We Are Man! Creativity is in our nature and in our hands, and has been since the dawn of mankind. We are the only species of animal on the planet that continuously pours out new ideas every second of every day, and has been doing so for as long as any historic records have been kept... and even far beyond that into the deepest past of pre-history. Our very essence is Creativity and , we were put here, placed here... or whatever to continuously bring about Perpetual Change. If we have any purpose in life at all it is that, to create and move the world into the future with our ideas and what we make and bring into reality. Why are people so determined to slow things down to a halt, to cause things to stop... or to say in other way... To Imitate Death, that condition where there is no movement.

In my art... music, there has to be movement... music is like a living organism at it's best... ever changing, twisting stretching and exploring new worlds of sound. Music is non-static design, it is A Sound Sculpture in Sound, always In Motion. Music moves like all healthy living things... not trapped, inhibited, restricted or enslaved to any outside force... Not Dead. Music is A Pure, Living... Creative Flow of Energy, unfolding before our ears... as if they were eyes. This is what has made music a very special and important part of our lives... it is a pattern or blueprint of life itself. Like DNA music shapes our lives mysteriously in ways we cannot even begin to know. Music takes on a journey to our own soul, a place we seldom can visit without such a guide, a guide to a part of our self we cannot experience any other way.

Craig Smith