Don't Try To Learn Everything
Published: Fri, 03/10/23
So the treats come along, and for the most part it's working out – I can get her to sit and wait for some kind of bribe long enough for someone else and their dog to get beyond our immediate vicinity, at which point there's invariably something more pressing to attend to – some patch of grass or bit of a stain on the asphalt that requires her immediate and thorough attention.
A few months ago, I was chatting with David Lusterman, the recently-retired found of Acoustic Guitar magazine, and he revealed that he was not a podcast guy. He had no interest, he said, in listening to stuff while he was out walking, or exercising, or driving around. At first I chalked this up to our actually-not-that-significant generational difference, but over the next week or two I started experimenting with not jacking into the matrix the minute I stepped out the door. It turns out, much like the family dog, over the course of a twenty- or thirty-minute walk I now find all kinds of things to interest me. I'd like to say it's made me more observant of my surroundings and more attuned to the specific sights and sounds of my neighborhood, but mostly I've noticed my brain starts to cough up at least a few good thoughts per walk, and if I'm not tuned in to any external kind of entertainment, I actually have the time and attention to collect some of those thoughts now and then for future reference.
Yesterday morning, for instance, I found myself musing on some of the differences between how blues and jazz work, and what a bad mismatch it can be when blues guitarists wind up getting practice and study advice from jazz musicians. And I say this as a guy with a lifelong love for jazz, a fascination with music theory and a deep abiding interest in the nature of pedagogy. First I thought, "cool, that's what I'll write about this week." And then I thought, "hmm, what if I talk about that on my Youtube channel instead?"
So that's what I did. You can find the resulting video at the link below:
Don't Try To Learn Everything
More soon,
David