Ever since I can remember, my life has been defined by two purposes.

One, to learn the secrets of mastery and two, to apply that mastery to achieve full expression in life and in music.

The first journey has been well documented in the AOV.

The second is still to be written and probably never will.

As part of the continuing saga of the first journey, I recently acquired two new books.  Yip Chun’s ‘Wing-Chun Martial Arts: Principles and Techniques‘ and Tim Cartmell’s ‘Effortless Combat Throws.’

Yip Chun is the son of Yip Man, the teacher of Bruce Lee.

And you can probably guess from the title of the second book why I was drawn to it.

To me, the martial arts represents a treasure trove of secret knowledge and wisdom. Growing up in the East, I was familiar with the legendary exploits of the old martial arts masters.

Special powers, levitation, the ability to fly through space – all easily depicted these days with computer graphics and cheapened by Hollywood special effects, but very real to me growing up.

For some reason, I was never attracted to the martial arts enough to want to practice it myself. I did take Tai Chi lessons for half a year but gave that up quickly. Somehow, standing in one place, moving the body for the sake of moving it was not exactly my idea of fun.

But I have always been a voracious reader of all things martial. And I relate many of my techniques through them too.

My concept of sticky fingers, for instance, mirrors  the technique of Chi Sau – Sticky Hands.

When you play the guitar, you should feel a stickiness in the fingertips, as if they have a special attraction to the strings.

The technique of sticky fingers produce extreme economy and precision. You feel as if you’re never going to miss the strings, partly because your fingers are never very far from them, and partly because they possess that close connection to the strings which I call finger intelligence.

And so it was that the minute I saw Yip Chun’s book, I was hooked instantly. And the book didn’t disappoint. Fascinating stuff. There’s so much in the book, some of which I will no doubt further elaborate here one day.

The second book is by American kungfu master Tim Cartmell.

This book is far more theoretical, perhaps reflecting the author’s western background. I have yet to dive into the book, I just got it yesterday, but it promises to be a good read this summer.

There’re two ways to achieve effortlessness in life.

The first is to do only the bare essentials, to get rid of all unnecessary stuff.

Less steps, less components means less effort.

The second is to get someone or something else to do it for you.

When I suggested this second option in one of the earlier incarnations of the AOV, (I think I said something like, “Do not do for yourself what others can do for you.”), my friend who was proofreading it was aghast. He left a few exclamation marks by way of comment.

But no, that’s not what I meant.

I didn’t mean to imply that the way to effortlessness is to exploit others.

What I meant is to harness the energy of others to do your work for you, in symbiotic ways, in mutually beneficial relationships.

A classic example of this kind of relationships is the honey bee. Flowers need honey bees to pollinate for them, and honey bees need flowers to give them honey. Win-win all around.

If you’re a guitar teacher, you don’t need to advertise yourself.

Let your students do it for you.

Teach them well, and their good playing will speak and advertise for you. Another win-win relationship.

In the martial arts, utilizing your opponent’s strength to defeat themselves is a common strategy. Why waste your energy when you can redirect your opponent’s energy back to him?

In the AOV, enlisting the energy of other elements is a crucial part of the strategy.

Don’t depend on the fingers to pluck the string for you.

Harness the power of momentum to generate effortless speed. Or tap into the energy in the strings to produce effortless power.

And of course, don’t forget the first option – make your movements super economical so you don’t have to do so much work.

I’ve been playing the tremolo a lot lately – neglected it these past ten years. (In fact, come to think of it, I have neglected the guitar these past ten years.)

But I’ve been playing the tremolo a lot lately and it’s been an interesting exercise, revisiting it and observing it anew, from different angles.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m struck by how complex it can be if you want to analyze it. So many elements have to be in place before you can produce that seamless stream of notes.

Of course, if you just follow your instincts and play naturally, it can be the simplest thing to do. It’s like any human motion; if you break it down into its component parts, it can be incredibly complex. But if you just allow your body to do it naturally, it can be really simple too.

Back to the tremolo.

At the basic level, to make it work, the basic conditions I wrote about in the AOV have to be absolutely there. If you don’t have those conditions, forget it.

But there’re other factors involved, such as finding that sweet spot in your hand, where everything is working together and optimally — your hand, wrist, fingers all moving in perfect harmony.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I observed are the basic properties that are absolutely essential to the finger movements themselves.

The first is lightness. (This happens to be a key principle in the AOV.) Your movements have to be super light, not a hint of effort or tension anywhere, completely free and unfettered.

The second is efficiency. Your movements have to be super efficient, no waste of energy, focused only on doing what it needs to do. This is the principle of economy, another basic key principle in the AOV.

And the third is momentum, you have to create momentum in your actions and let it drive your actions.

Momentum is not one of the principles of the AOV. I did include it in earlier versions but decided to take it out as it has more to do with movement than a basic fundamental property of virtuosity.

It is however crucial to virtuoso movement

Think of momentum as a row of falling dominoes.

To knock down a row of dominoes, all you need to do it knock down the first one and the rest will automatically fall over.

It’s the same with virtuoso finger movements. To create a stream of effortless notes, just initiate the first one, and let momentum do the rest for you.

This is something I’ve written about extensively already, and is the principle behind the self-propelled engine. But it’s a principle that is never more crucial than in playing the tremolo.

When you harness the power of momentum to play for you, you’ll find you don’t have to do much, your fingers will do the rest for you. All you need to do it is relax them (and I mean relax them!) and get out of their way.

To expand on the previous post, a good way to describe the one path is ‘the sweet spot.’

You know what the sweet spot is. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it is “The place on a bat, club, racket, or paddle, where it is most effective to hit a ball.”

Wikipedia has a more extended definition:

“A sweet spot is a place where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort. In tennis, baseball, or cricket, a given swing will result in a more powerful hit if the ball strikes the racquet or bat on the latter’s sweet spot.”

In guitar playing, the ‘sweet spot’ is where everything is working optimally, where your hands feel perfectly right, and you’re able to play with maximum ease and comfort.

The difficulty, as I pointed out in the last post, is how do you know when you have found the sweet spot?

The only way to tell is with results. (And not how great your hands look, not how straight your wrist is, not how much follow-through you have…)

If you’re playing well, if you’re able to do everything you want to do and do it in front of an audience, that’s a good sign you’ve probably found that sweet spot.

Conversely, if playing feels hard, if something doesn’t feel right, if you lack security and accuracy in your fingers, if you have a hard time playing even a simple piece in front of people, that’s a sign you probably haven’t found it.

Perhaps the worst thing you can do is try to get someone else to tell you where your playing sweet spot should be.

You know how, when you go to sleep, it sometimes takes a little while to find that optimum position where you feel completely at ease and comfortable and able to drift off? And you’ll have to try a few different positions before you find it?

Well, you wouldn’t ask someone to show you what that ideal sleeping position should be for you, why would you ask someone else to show you what your ideal playing position should be?

Recently, I had a rather cordial exchange with one of the many online experts on guitar playing, and at the end of our discussion, he said something to the effect that ‘the master knows there’s only one path to mastery.’

To which I responded with ‘many roads lead to Rome.’

Actually, he’s right in his assertion that there’s only one right path to mastery, except that he got it wrong in one crucial respect, and that is, that ‘one path’ differs from individual to individual.

What’s right for me may not be right for you. What worked for Segovia may not work for you.

We’re talking here, of course, about details of technique, how to hold the hand, how to pluck, and specifically, in the topic under discussion, how to hold the left hand to the fretboard.

Details will always differ from individual to individual because each one of us is unique. Just as every one of us have a unique visage, every one of us possess unique physical attributes that determine the details of our technique, and what that ‘path to mastery’ is for us.

And the only person who can find out what that path is is you.

This point lies at the heart of the AOV, that the road to virtuosity is a personal journey of discovery, no one can do it for you. You’ll have to take on that journey yourself and discover what that path is for you.

But how do you know when you find it?

When all the elements described in the AOV are in place.

When you feel a supreme sense of comfort and relaxation in what you do, when playing becomes so effortless and easy, you don’t have to do much, you just hear the notes in your mind, and your fingers automatically do the rest for you.

And that’s the purpose of the AOV — it’s not meant to be a magic formula for you to attain virtuosity, rather, its purpose is to describe the vital conditions that must be in place before virtuosity can occur.

The first time I started thinking about it was when I was teaching at North Texas State University, now UNT.

I had a student named Anthony P. Anthony was just a freshman, and not even a music major. He had come from Houston and he had the most incredible gift. Everything he played, he made the guitar sing.

And in that singing, I could hear a ‘voice.’ It was a voice full of feeling and expression. At times it was plaintive, at other times coaxing. When he played, you felt like he was speaking directly to you.

After that, I began to hear other musicians the same way. In every one of them, I could hear a voice too. In good musicians, I heard voices with the same sensitivity as Anthony’s, voices full of feeling and expression.

And in others, all I could hear was a “blah blah blah blah blah.”

You feel as if they’re talking at you instead of to you.

Try it. Go on youtube and listen, not to the notes, not to the technique, not even to the music, just listen to the ‘voice’ behind the playing. You may have to close your eyes and concentrate real hard and then you will hear the ‘voice’ in the notes.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting three wonderful musicians at Del Mar college. One of them was Yury Martynov, Chair of the keyboard department at the Moscow Conservatory.

Yury Martynov at Del Mar College

Professor Martynov is not exactly a household name, but in the pantheon of great musicians, he’s right up there with the best, Dinu Lipatti and Glenn Gould.

At a private dinner, he played three pieces for us and I was completely floored. Never had I heard such sensitivity and feeling. The word is ‘magical,’ especially in his impromptu performance of Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1 (this youtube  performance is not by Martynov but it’s pretty good too.)

What is it about Martynov and Anthony that so captivated me?

Sensitivity.

Anthony was blessed with incredible natural sensitivity to the music he was playing. He probably didn’t know what he was doing, but he knew how to make those notes sing.

Mr. Martynov, on the other hand, is the consummate artist. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he creates pure magic with it, with great sensitivity.

So what’s this thing called sensitivity?

We know what it means in life, we use the word all the time. We say someone’s sensitive to the cold, to heat, to pollen, perhaps even to criticism.

To me, it means to be aware, to sense and know what’s going on, and respond to it, either consciously or unconsciously.

That definition is the same in music, to play with sensitivity means you must know what’s going on in the music and you’re able to respond to it and convey that feeling and emotion to the audience.

At the basic level, it means giving full expression to the melodic line.

Like a good actor speaking his lines convincingly, you must play every note and melody convincingly, and give it its appropriate emotional content and meaning.

But sensitivity is much more than just playing melody expressively.

You must know everything else that’s going on in the music, from chord changes to key changes, to every compositional device in the book.

If you’re going from the dominant chord to the tonic chord, you must convey the sense of resolution in that chord progression. Or if you’re playing an appoggiatura, you must give it that sense of resolution too. Or if you’re modulating to a different key, you must know the relationship between that key to the old key and be able to convey that relationship in your playing. (For instance, modulating from A major to C major requires a different treatment as from A major to E major.)

And you must understand the function and relative weight of every other element in the music.

For instance, main themes have more weight than secondary themes, and secondary themes more weight than transitional filler material. Melody has more weight than bass lines and bass lines more weight than accompaniment. And you have to play them all accordingly. You can’t play everything exactly the same as if they all have the same musical weight and meaning.

If you do, you’ll get that “blah blah blah” effect I wrote about earlier.

It does make playing classical music difficult, doesn’t it?

Well, western classical music is a highly evolved art form and no one claims it’s easy or simple. It’s a complex language in itself, with many special conventions and syntax and one has to immerse oneself thoroughly in the art to be able to understand and express it convincingly.

How does one go about learning all this?

From experience — from listening to other artists, understanding what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and then incorporating those things into your own playing.

But the most important part is to become extra sensitive to everything that’s going on in the music and be able to convey that understanding to the listener in your playing.

In his masterclass, Mr. Martynov said something which sums up his special musicianship perfectly. Talking about a Scriabin phrase, he said, “That phrase is very boxy [square], in your playing, you must escape that box.”

That, to me, is the essence of good sensitive musicianship, make the music come alive, make it sing, make it talk and escape all the boxes within it.

I’ve been reading this book on landscape painting by Ted Gould* and I came across his insightful remark – that technique can’t be taught.

This is a direct affirmation of my own long-held belief – that you can’t teach technique to someone, you can only provide them with directions on how they can go about acquiring that technique for themselves.

This is based on the same kind of logic that says you can’t eat a chocolate for someone.

Or hire someone to work out and get that six-pack for you.

Or practice for someone.

The key word is ‘experiential.’

To learn anything, you have to experience it yourself.

To understand how the tremolo is played, you’ll have to do it yourself, and if you do it long enough, the breakthrough will come and you will understand perfectly how it’s done,

A teacher can help you get to that point quicker. Books and instructions and advice from friends can help you get there earlier too (or maybe not, depending on who’s dispensing the advice).

But unless you practice diligently, all the advice you get is absolutely worthless.

Take the current brouhaha about the dismal state of our education, and placing the blame on teachers.

The misunderstanding is based on a warped idea of how learning takes place.

Going back to the chocolate analogy, unless students want to eat that chocolate (substitute that for ‘learn’), they’ll never get to taste it (substitute that for ‘acquire the knowledge.)

A simple truth and yet no one wants to face it.

These past few months, I’ve been doing some more in-depth analysis of the mechanics of the tremolo technique and I’m astounded by what I’ve discovered. It turns out that the technique is much more complex than I thought it to be.

It’s a veritable Swiss watch of guitar technique.

So many elements and factors have to be in place before you can master the technique. One element out of sync or missing, and you’re out of luck.

How does anyone learn how to put all these elements in place?

Practice and experiencing.

To describe everyone of these elements in detail would require a ton of instructions, and would probably create more confusion than understanding.

So I guess the million dollar question is, if technique can’t be taught, what’s the point of having teachers?

And closer to home, what’s the point of all these books – more specifically, the “AOV” or the “AOV for guitar”

Here, we come to the crux of the matter.

These books are not designed to turn you into a virtuoso overnight.

They’re like recipe books. You can’t eat a recipe book, but you can follow the directions inside and hopefully come up with a good tasting meal.

They’re like road maps. They’ll show you the way to San Jose, but unless you get into your car and start driving, you’re still not in San Jose.

On that ominous note, I’ll like to mention that after several requests for skype lessons and several successful sessions, I’ve decided to offer skype lessons to anyone who has purchased the AOV for Guitar.

Please send me an email if you’re interested.

*This is by no means an endorsement of the book.

One of my favorite activities during summer is to drive up the Santa Cruz Mountains to visit one of my favorite persons, John Gilbert.

I’ve forgotten how I got to know John. My first recollection of meeting him was having him fine-tune my Savino guitar for my Chopin recording.  I was having trouble with its intonation and John was kind enough to redo the saddle and fix the fretwork for me.

After that, I went up regularly to visit him, every summer, whenever I was in the SF Bay Area. And I got to know him well. Usually, we would just stay in his studio in the garage and talk guitar talk. He was a walking encyclopedia of guitar facts and knowledge and I was the eager student. And in between the small talk, I would play for him. I remember playing most of my Chopin nocturnes for him before I recorded them in 2002.

John was one of the gentlest and kindest persons I’ve ever known. I remember telling him once that I was looking for a new key to my Mark Leaf case (my only key had broken) and he spent a whole afternoon trying to machine-tool one for me, unfortunately without much success. Thankfully, our mutual friend, Andre, happened to be there and offered me one of his spares.

And then there was the time I brought the missus up to see him. When he found out that she’s a schoolteacher, he gave her a whole box of his specialty rocks and stones for her to show her students. These are machine ground stones, made with the same loving care he built all his guitars.

It’s March, the time I usually start looking forward to summer again, and to my annual trip up the Santa Cruz Mountains. But this year, it looks like I wouldn’t be making that trip. Thanks, John, for everything.