The art of a musician/artist

Study

The musician/artist delves deep into his/her art to find the common threads and basic underlying pillars of his/her craft.  Then he/she chooses a path to follow and an artist or group of artists to emulate that resonate with the way the he/she hears music.  

Practice

He/she begins to practice and mimic the masters by practicing the way they solved musical “problems” and getting a sense of what it feels like to solve those problems themselves.

Application

The musician/artist then applies their skills learned in actual performance situations and tests their training to see how well they react to the challenges of live performance

Revision (happens continuously throughout life)

After failing and achieving he/she keeps what works in a musical situation and discards what doesn’t work.  The musician/artist learns to edit his/her playing and hone in on what they want to sound like.  This is where the identity of the artist becomes more apparent.  It is through this selection process that defines the artist’s choices and their tastes more fully.

Re-application (happens continuously throughout life)

The musician/artist applies the edited concepts in performance situations and tests their own self-created theories in the fire of performance.  This is the presentation of identity and the real performance of self.  This process continues throughout the life of the artist as they continue to re-shape and re-think their craft in the context of the continuously changing world around them.